The slaves in whom I then had an unfortunate interest were sold some years
ago. The islands themselves are at present in the power of the Northern
troops. The record contained in the following pages is a picture of
conditions of human existence which I hope and believe have passed away.

LONDON:

_January 16, 1863._




JOURNAL.


Philadelphia: December 1838.

My Dear E----. I return you Mr. ----'s letter. I do not think it answers
any of the questions debated in our last conversation at all
satisfactorily: the _right_ one man has to enslave another, he has not the
hardihood to assert; but in the reasons he adduces to defend that act of
injustice, the contradictory statements he makes appear to me to refute
each other. He says, that to the continental European protesting against
the abstract iniquity of slavery, his answer would be, 'the slaves are
infinitely better off than half the continental peasantry.' To the
Englishman, 'they are happy compared with the miserable Irish.' But
supposing that this answered the question of original injustice, which it
does not, it is not a true reply. Though the negroes are fed, clothed, and
housed, and though the Irish peasant is starved, naked, and roofless, the
bare name of freeman--the lordship over his own person, the power to