temper quite as violent and ungoverned as his own.

Imagine now two classes of slaves, the one belonging to the mistress,
and the other brought into the country by the master, and each animated
by a party spirit and jealousy;--imagine children of different
marriages, inheriting from their parents violent tempers and stubborn
wills, flattered and fawned on by slaves, and alternately petted or
stormed at, now by this parent and now by that, and you will have some
idea of the task which I undertook in being tutor in this family.

I was young and fearless in those days, as you are now, and the
difficulties of the position, instead of exciting apprehension, only
awakened the spirit of enterprise and adventure.

The whole arrangements of the household, to me fresh from the simplicity
and order of New England, had a singular and wild sort of novelty which
was attractive rather than otherwise. I was well recommended in the
family by an influential and wealthy gentleman of Boston, who
represented my family, as indeed it was, as among the oldest and most
respectable of Boston, and spoke in such terms of me, personally, as I
should not have ventured to use in relation to myself. When I arrived, I
found that two or three tutors, who had endeavored to bear rule in this
tempestuous family, had thrown up the command after a short trial, and
that the parents felt some little apprehension of not being able to
secure the services of another,--a circumstance which I did not fail to
improve in making my preliminary arrangements. I assumed an air of grave
hauteur, was very exacting in all my requisitions and stipulations, and
would give no promise of doing more than to give the situation a
temporary trial. I put on an air of supreme indifference as to my
continuance, and acted in fact rather on the assumption that I should
confer a favor by remaining.

In this way I succeeded in obtaining at the outset a position of more
respect and deference than had been enjoyed by any of my predecessors. I
had a fine apartment, a servant exclusively devoted to me, a horse for
riding, and saw myself treated among the servants as a person of
consideration and distinction.

Don Jose and his wife both had in fact a very strong desire to retain my
services, when after the trial of a week or two, it was found that I
really could make their discordant and turbulent children to some extent
obedient and studious during certain portions of the day; and in fact