least
disappointed. I cannot find language sufficiently strong to express the
commendation due to the negroes for their steady and good conduct since
the 1st of August. Amidst the most trying circumstance, they have
exhibited the greatest forbearance, and placed their whole reliance on
the laws for protection. I am satisfied that no other nation of free men
could conduct themselves so temperately and well, under similar
circumstances; and in my opinion, they have proved themselves infinitely
superior to many of those who so lately exercised almost unlimited
control over them. I declare to you, to see such a mass of persons,
whose morals have been little regarded by those who held them in
slavery, and without education, rise all at once, and express and
conduct themselves so admirably, is wonderful. When seeking redress
before the magistrates for wrongs committed by there former owners they
have maintained more coolness and temper than their more fortunate
brethren, when maters are decided against them. There is a hard struggle
on the part of the pro-slavery faction to compel the negro to work for
little or nothing, in order that the attorneys and overseers may keep
their places as before; and I am informed, by a gentleman whose veracity
is not to be doubted, and who is himself an attorney, that he can still
keep his overseer and merchant as in former days, draw his own
commissions, and send home to his employer a very handsome surplus.
Under such circumstances, well may the friends of freedom cry shame at
the opposition which has for so long a time been thrown in the way of
liberty, by these West Indians of practical knowledge. The facts are,
that the absent proprietors have been led by the advice they have
received from their attorneys; and these have had so many ways of making
more than an honest commission, and have so speedily made their
fortunes, that as long as they could continue slavery, they have exerted
every influence. The overseer was paid, housed, fed, and waited upon,
all at the expense of master and slave, beside; keeping a fine stud of
horses, and as many brood mares at pasture on the property as would
enable him to dispose of seven or eight prime mules annually; and so
long as he drove and tormented the poor negro, and made good crops for
the attorney's commissions, and supplied his horses with corn, these
_little perquisites_ were never discovered. Now the proprietor will
hardly pay for more labor than