rather to shew the cruelties incident to the system. I have no disposition
to attempt to convict him of having been one of the most cruel
masters--that would not be true--his prevailing temper was kind, but he
was a perpetualist. He was opposed to emancipation; thought free negroes a
great nuisance, and was, as respects discipline, a thorough slaveholder.
He would not tolerate a look or a word from a slave like insubordination.
He would suppress it at once, and at any risk. When he thought it
necessary to secure unqualified obedience, he would strike a slave with
any weapon, flog him on the bare back, and sell. And this was the kind of
discipline he also empowered his overseers and sons to use.

I have seen children go from our plantations to join the chained-gang on
its way from Washington to Louisiana; and I have seen men and women
flogged--I have seen the overseers strike a man with a hay-fork--nay more,
men have been maimed by shooting! Some dispute arose one morning between
the overseer and one of the farm hands, when the former made at the slave
with a hickory club; the slave taking to his heels, started for the woods;
as he was crossing the yard, the overseer turned, snatched his gun which
was near, and fired at the flying slave, lodging several shots in the
calf of one leg. The poor fellow continued his flight, and got into the
woods; but he was in so much pain that he was compelled to come out in the
evening, and give himself up to his master, thinking he would not allow
him to be punished as he had been shot. He was locked up that night; the
next morning the overseer was allowed to tie him up and flog him; his
master then took his instruments and picked the shot out of his leg, and
told him, it served him just right.

My master had a deeply pious and exemplary slave, an elderly man, who one
day had a misunderstanding with the overseer, when the latter attempted to
flog him. He fled to the woods; it was noon; at evening he came home