price previously agreed on. Nothing discouraged, he went to
work again. Night and day, he toiled, and it surprised every one to see
so much energy and fixedness of purpose in a negro. At last, after four
more years of labor, he accomplished his purpose, and received his
free-papers. He had worked seven years--as long as Jacob toiled for
Rachel--for his freedom, and like the old patriarch found himself
cheated at last. I was present when he received his papers from his
owner, a Mr. William H. Lippitt--who still resides at Wilmington--and I
shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion;
he sung and danced and laughed and wept, till my conscience smote me for
holding my own niggers, when freedom might give them so much happiness.
Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and then, for three
days afterward, lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife and
children having no effect on him. He swore he was free, and would do as
he 'd----d pleased.' He had previously been a class-leader in his
church, but after getting free-papers, he forsook his previous
associates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room. He
neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step
he went down, till in five years he stink into a wretched grave. That
was the effect of freedom on _him_, and it would be so on all his race.'

'It is clear,' I replied, 'he could not bear freedom, but that does not
prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave. His
overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to
his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor
the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty,
therefore, has laid upon _you_ a triple burden; you not only have to
provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you,
the black and the clay-eating white man. The poor nigger has a hard
time, but it seems to me you have a harder one.'

'Well, it's a fact, we do. I often think that if it wasn't for the color
and the odor, I'd be glad to exchange places with my man Jim.'

The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way,
that excited my risibilities amazingly, but before I could reply, the
carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced:

'We's h'ar, massa, and de prayin' am gwine on.'

Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered the
latter fact s