d cruelty, but
hope soon to breathe the air of a free state. My soul is sick of
slavery, and I rejoice that my time is nearly expired: but the scenes
that I have witnessed have made an impression that never can be
effaced, and have inspired me with the determination to unite my
feeble efforts with those who are laboring to suppress this horrid
system. I am _now_ an _abolitionist_. You will cease to be surprised
at this, when I inform you, that I have just seen a poor slave who was
beaten by his inhuman master until he could neither walk nor stand. I
saw him from my window carried from the barn where he had been
whipped to the cabin, by two negro men; and he now lies there, and if
he recovers, will be a sufferer for months, and probably for life. You
will doubtless suppose that he committed some great crime; but it was
not so. He was called upon by a young man (the son of his master,) to
do something, and not moving as quickly as his young master wished him
to do, he drove him to the barn, knocked him down, and jumped upon
him, stamped, and then cowhided him until he was almost dead. This is
not the first act of cruelty that I have seen, though it is the
_worst_; and I am convinced that those who have described the
cruelties of slaveholders, have not exaggerated."

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM GERRIT SMITH, Esq., of Peterboro'. N.Y.
Peterboro', December 1, 1838.

_To the Editor of the Union Herald_: "My dear Sir:--You will be happy
to hear, that the two fugitive slaves, to whom in the brotherly love
of your heart, you gave the use of your horse, are still making
undisturbed progress towards the _monarchical_ land whither
_republican_ slaves escape for the enjoyment of liberty. They had
eaten their breakfast, and were seated in my wagon, before day-dawn,
this morning.

"Fugitive slaves have before taken my house in their way, but never
any, whose lips and persons made so forcible an appeal to my
sensibilities, and kindled in me so much abhorrence of the
hell-concocted system of American slavery.

"The fugitives exhibited their bare backs to myself and a number of my
neighbors. Williams' back is comparatively scarred. But, I speak
within bounds, when I say, that one-third to one-half of the whole
surface of the back and shoulders of poor Scott, _consists of scars
and wales resulting from innumerable gashes._ His natural complexion
being yellow and the callous places being nearly black, his back and
shoulders remind you