gers than any man living or dead. I was
once employed by General Wade Hampton, for ten years, in doing nothing
but breaking 'em in; and everybody knows that the General would not
have a man that didn't understand his business. So I tell ye,
stranger, again, you had better sell, and let me take him down to
Orleans. He will do you no good if you take him across Mason's and
Dixon's line; he is a keen nigger, and I can see from the cut of his
eye that he is certain to run away." My master said, "I think not,
sir; I have great confidence in his fidelity." "FiDEVIL," indignantly
said the dealer, as his fist came down upon the edge of the saucer and
upset a cup of hot coffee in a gentleman's lap. (As the scalded man
jumped up the trader quietly said, "Don't disturb yourself, neighbour;
accidents will happen in the best of families.") "It always makes me
mad to hear a man talking about fidelity in niggers. There isn't a
d----d one on 'em who wouldn't cut sticks, if he had half a chance."

By this time we were near Charleston; my master thanked the captain for
his advice, and they all withdrew and went on deck, where the trader
fancied he became quite eloquent. He drew a crowd around him, and with
emphasis said, "Cap'en, if I was the President of this mighty United
States of America, the greatest and freest country under the whole
universe, I would never let no man, I don't care who he is, take a
nigger into the North and bring him back here, filled to the brim, as
he is sure to be, with d----d abolition vices, to taint all quiet
niggers with the hellish spirit of running away. These air, cap'en, my
flat-footed, every day, right up and down sentiments, and as this is a
free country, cap'en, I don't care who hears 'em; for I am a Southern
man, every inch on me to the backbone." "Good!" said an
insignificant-looking individual of the slave-dealer stamp. "Three
cheers for John C. Calhoun and the whole fair sunny South!" added the
trader. So off went their hats, and out burst a terrific roar of
irregular but continued cheering. My master took no more notice of the
dealer. He merely said to the captain that the air on deck was too
keen for him, and he would therefore return to the cabin.

While the trader was in the zenith of his eloquence, he might as well
have said, as one of his kit did, at a great Filibustering meeting,
that "When the great American Eagle gets one of his mighty claws upon
Canada and the other into