whom there are so many
turned out to grass here, and of whom I have spoken to you before,
though they are past work, are by no means past gossip, and the stories
they have to tell of the former government of the estate under old Massa
K---- are certainly pretty tremendous illustrations of the merits of
slavery as a moral institution. This man, the father of the late owner,
Mr. R---- K----, was Major ----'s agent in the management of this
property; and a more cruel and unscrupulous one as regards the slaves
themselves, whatever he may have been in his dealings with the master, I
should think it would be difficult to find, even among the cruel and
unscrupulous class to which he belonged.

In a conversation with old 'House Molly,' as she is called, to distinguish
her from all other Mollies on the estate, she having had the honour of
being a servant in Major ----'s house for many years, I asked her if the
relation between men and women who are what they call married, i.e., who
have agreed to live together as man and wife (the only species of marriage
formerly allowed on the estate, I believe now London may read the Marriage
Service to them), was considered binding by the people themselves and by
the overseer. She said 'not much, formerly,' and that the people couldn't
be expected to have much regard to such an engagement, utterly ignored as
it was by Mr. K----, whose invariable rule, if he heard of any
disagreement between a man and woman calling themselves married, was
immediately to bestow them in 'marriage' on other parties, whether they
chose it or not, by which summary process the slightest 'incompatibility
of temper' received the relief of a divorce more rapid and easy than even
Germany could afford, and the estate lost nothing by any prolongation of
celibacy on either side. Of course, the misery consequent upon such
arbitrary destruction of voluntary and imposition of involuntary ties was
nothing to Mr. K----.

I was very sorry to hear to-day, that Mr. O----, the overseer at the
rice-island, of whom I have made mention to you more than once in my
letters, had had one of the men flogged very severely for getting his wife
baptised. I was quite unable, from the account I received, to understand
what his objection had been to the poor man's desire to make his wife at
least a formal Christian; but it does seem dreadful that such an act
should be so visited. I almost wish I was back again at the rice-island;
for though t