finer daughters than the Ethiopian women, who have the least chance to
give scope to their maternal affections. But what is generally the fate of
such female slaves? When they are not raised for the express purpose of
supplying the market of a class of economical Louisian and Mississippi
gentlemen, who do not wish to incur the expense of rearing legitimate
families, they are, nevertheless, on account of their attractions, exposed
to the most shameful degradation, by the young masters in the families
where it is claimed they are so well off. My master once owned a beautiful
girl about twenty-four. She had been raised in a family where her mother
was a great favourite. She was her mother's darling child. Her master was
a lawyer of eminent abilities and great fame, but owing to habits of
intemperance, he failed in business, and my master purchased this girl for
a nurse. After he had owned her about a year, one of his sons became
attached to her, for no honourable purposes; a fact which was not only
well-known among all of the slaves, but which became a source of
unhappiness to his mother and sisters.

The result was, that poor Rachel had to be sold to "Georgia." Never shall
I forget the heart-rending scene, when one day one of the men was ordered
to get "the one-horse cart ready to go into town;" Rachel, with her few
articles of clothing, was placed in it, and taken into the very town where
her parents lived, and there sold to the traders before their weeping
eyes. That same son who had degraded her, and who was the cause of her
being sold, acted as salesman, and bill of saleman. While this cruel
business was being transacted, my master stood aside, and the girl's
father, a pious member and exhorter in the Methodist Church, a venerable
grey-headed man, with his hat off, besought that he might be allowed to
get some one in the place to purchase his child. But no; my master was
invincible. His reply was, "She has offended in my family, and I can only
restore confidence by sending her out of hearing." After lying in prison a