s shawl having
been unwound, her child was found laughing on her bosom. But hardly had
they had time to thank God for their deliverance when Mr. C---- fell
fainting on the beach; and Mrs. F----, who told me this, said that for one
dreadful moment they thought that the preserver of all their lives had
lost his own in the terrible exertion and anxiety that he had undergone.
He revived, however, and crawling a little further up the beach, they
burrowed for warmth and shelter as well as they could in the sand, and lay
there till the next morning, when they sought and found succour.

You cannot imagine, my dear E----, how strikingly throughout this whole
narrative the extraordinary power of Mr. C----'s character makes itself
felt,--the immediate obedience that he obtained from women whose terror
might have made them unmanageable, and men whose selfishness might have
defied his control; the wise though painful firmness, which enabled him to
order the boat away from the side of the perishing vessel, in spite of the
pity that he felt for the many, in attempting to succour whom he could
only have jeopardized the few whom he was bound to save; the wonderful
influence he exercised over the poor oarsmen, whose long protracted labour
postponed to the last possible moment the terrible risk of their landing.
The firmness, courage, humanity, wisdom, and presence of mind, of all his
preparations for their final tremendous risk, and the authority which he
was able to exercise while struggling in the foaming water for his own
life and that of the woman and child he was saving, over the man who was
proving false to a similar sacred charge,--all these admirable traits are
most miserably transmitted to you by my imperfect account; and when I
assure you that his own narrative, full as it necessarily was of the
details of his own heroism, was as simple, modest, and unpretending, as it
was interesting and touching, I am sure you will agree with me that he
must be a very rare man. When I spoke with enthusiasm to his old father of
his son's noble conduct, and asked him if he was not proud of it, his sole
reply was,--'I am glad, madam, my son was not selfish.'

Now, E----, I have often spoken with you and written to you of the
disastrous effect of slavery upon the character of the white men
implicated in it; many, among themselves, feel and acknowledge it to the
fullest extent, and no one more than myself can deplore that any human
being I love sh