ibe to you the
entries for to-day recorded in a sort of daybook, where I put down very
succinctly the number of people who visit me, their petitions and
ailments, and also such special particulars concerning them as seem to me
worth recording. You will see how miserable the physical condition of many
of these poor creatures is; and their physical condition, it is insisted
by those who uphold this evil system, is the only part of it which is
prosperous, happy, and compares well with that of northern labourers.
Judge from the details I now send you; and never forget, while reading
them, that the people on this plantation are well off, and consider
themselves well off, in comparison with the slaves on some of the
neighbouring estates.

_Fanny_ has had six children, all dead but one. She came to beg to have
her work in the field lightened.

_Nanny_ has had three children, two of them are dead; she came to implore
that the rule of sending them into the field three weeks after their
confinement might be altered.

_Leah_, Caesar's wife, has had six children, three are dead.

_Sophy_, Lewis' wife, came to beg for some old linen; she is suffering
fearfully, has had ten children, five of them are dead. The principal
favour she asked was a piece of meat, which I gave her.

_Sally_, Scipio's wife, has had two miscarriages and three children born,
one of whom is dead. She came complaining of incessant pain and weakness
in her back. This woman was a mulatto daughter of a slave called Sophy, by
a white man of the name of Walker, who visited the plantation.

_Charlotte_, Renty's wife, had had two miscarriages, and was with child
again. She was almost crippled with rheumatism, and showed me a pair of
poor swollen knees that made my heart ache. I have promised her a pair of
flannel trowsers, which I must forthwith set about making.

_Sarah_, Stephen's wife,--this woman's case and history were, alike,
deplorable, she had had four miscarriages, had brought seven children into
the world, five of whom were dead, and was again with child. She
complained of dreadful pains in the back, and an internal tumour which
swells with the exertion of working in the fields; probably, I think, she
is ruptured. She told me she had once been mad and ran into the woods,
where she contrived to elude discovery for some time, but was at last
tracked and brought back, when she was tied up by the arms and heavy logs
fastened to her feet, and was severely f