slaves in regular
service. There was one family of a man and his wife and four little
children, the price of "the lot" being _$_3500, or 700_l._ sterling, but
neither the man nor the woman seemed to care much whether they were sold
together or not. There was one poor girl of eighteen, with a little
child of nine weeks old, who was sold, and she was to set off to-night
with her baby, for a place in the State. The slave-dealer himself was a
civil, well-spoken man, at least to us, and spoke quite freely of his
calling, but we thought he spoke harshly to the poor negroes, especially
to the man with the wife and four children. It appears he had bought the
man separately from the woman and children, in order to bring them
together, but the man had attempted to run away, and told us in excuse
he did not like leaving his clothes behind him; whereupon papa asked him
if he cared more for his clothes than his wife, and gave him a lecture
on his domestic duties. The dealer said they sometimes are much
distressed when separated from their wives, or husband and children, but
that it was an exception when this was so. One can hardly credit this,
but so far as it is true it is one of the worst features of slavery that
it can thus deaden all natural feelings of affection. We have spoken a
good deal to the slaves here, and they seem anxious to obtain their
freedom. The brother of one of the waiters at our hotel had twice been
swindled by his master of the money he had saved to purchase his
freedom. I spoke to the housemaid at our hotel, also a slave, who
shuddered with horror when she described the miseries occasioned by the
separation of relations. She had been sold several times, and was
separated from her husband by being sold away from him. She said the
poor negroes are generally taken out of their beds in the middle of the
night, when sold to the slave-dealers, as there is a sense of shame
about transacting this trade in the day-time. From what the slaves told
us, they are, no doubt, frequently treated with great severity by the
masters, though not always, as they sometimes fall into the hands of
kind people; but though they may have been many years in one family,
they never know from hour to hour what may be their fate, as the usual
cause for parting with slaves is, the master falling into difficulties,
when he sells them to raise money, or to pay his debts. The waiter told
us, he would rather starve as a freeman than remain a slave