py one, who had already sorrow and sin
enough to bear.

It won't do; the subject has, without doubt, been duly investigated
already. I'd be willing (were I not opposed to betting) to bet my best
collar and neck ribbon, that a committee of investigation has been
appointed, consisting of twelve of Boston's primmest old maids, and they
have been scouring the plantations of the South, bidding the negroes hold
out their hands, (not as the poor souls will at first suppose, that they
may be crossed with a piece of silver,) and that they are now returning,
crest-fallen, to their native city, not having seen a branded hand in all
their journeying. Could aught escape _their_ vigilance? But they will say
they saw a vast number, and that will answer the purpose.

(Ah! Washington Irving, well mayest thou sigh and look back at the ladies
of the Golden Age. "These were the honest days, in which every woman stayed
at home, read the Bible, and wore pockets." These days are for ever gone.
Prophetic was thy lament! Now we may wear pockets--but, alas! we neither
stay at home, nor read our Bible. We form societies to reform the world,
and we write books on slavery!)

Talking of our ancestors, George, in the time of the Revolution,
(by-the-by, yours were a set of dear, honest old creatures, for there were
no Abolitionists then among us,) reminds me of an anecdote about George
Washington and a favorite servant. Billy Lee was an honest, faithful man,
and a first-rate groom, and George Washington--you need not blush to be a
namesake of his, though he was a slaveholder.

The two were in a battle, the battle of Monmouth, the soldiers fighting
like sixty, and Billy Lee looking on at a convenient distance, taking
charge of a led horse, in case Washington's should be shot from under him.

O, but it was a hot day! Washington used to recall the thirst and the
suffering attendant upon the heat, (thinking of the soldiers' suffering,
and not of his own.) As for Billy Lee, if he did not breathe freely, he
perspired enough so to make up for it. I warrant you he was anxious for the
battle to be over, and the sun to go down. But there he stood, true as
steel--honest, old patriot as he was--quieting the horse, and watching his
noble master's form, as proud and erect it was seen here and there,
directing the troops with that union of energy and calmness for which he
was distinguished. Washington's horse fell under him, dying from excessive
heat; but hear B