ame and looked into the cabin,
and seeing my mother, demanded her pass. She told them that she had one,
but had left it in another cabin, from whence she soon brought it, which
saved her a whipping but we were terribly frightened.

The reader will obtain a better knowledge of the character of a Virginia
patrol, by the relation of an affair, which came off on the neighboring
plantation of Col. Alexander, in which some forty of Capt. Helm's slaves
were engaged, and which proved rather destructive of human life in the
end.

But I must first say that it is not true, that slave owners are respected
for kindness to their slaves. The more tyrannical a master is, the more
will he be favorably regarded by his neighboring planters; and from the
day that he acquires the reputation of a kind and indulgent master, he is
looked upon with suspicion, and sometimes hatred, and his slaves are
watched more closely than before.

Col. Alexander was a very wealthy planter and owned a great number of
slaves, but he was very justly suspected of being a kind, humane, and
indulgent master. His slaves were always better fed, better clad, and had
greater privileges than any I knew in the Old Dominion; and of course, the
patrol had long had an eye on them, anxious to flog some of "those
pampered niggers, who were spoiled by the indulgence of a weak,
inefficient, but well-meaning owner."

Col. A. gave his slaves the liberty to get up a grand dance. Invitations
were sent and accepted, to a large number of slaves on other plantations,
and so, for miles around, all or many of the slaves were in high
anticipation of joining in the great dance, which was to come off on
Easter night. In the mean time, the patrol was closely watching their
movements, and evinced rather a joyful expectancy of the many they
should find there without a pass, and the flogging they would give them
for that, if not guilty of any other offence, and perhaps they might catch
some of the Colonel's slaves doing something for which they could be
taught "to know their place," by the application of the cowhide.

The slaves on Col. A.'s plantation had to provide and prepare the supper
for the expected vast "turn out," which was no light matter; and as slaves
like on such occasions to pattern as much as possible after their master's
family, the result was, to meet the emergency of the case, they _took_
without saying, "by your leave, Sir," some property belonging to their
master, rea