I may here add a few words respecting the earlier portion of Mary Prince's
narrative. The facts there stated must necessarily rest entirely,--since
we have no collateral evidence,--upon their intrinsic claims to
probability, and upon the reliance the reader may feel disposed, after
perusing the foregoing pages, to place on her veracity. To my judgment,
the internal evidence of the truth of her narrative appears remarkably
strong. The circumstances are related in a tone of natural sincerity, and
are accompanied in almost every case with characteristic and minute
details, which must, I conceive, carry with them full conviction to every
candid mind that this negro woman has actually seen, felt, and suffered
all that she so impressively describes; and that the picture she has given
of West Indian slavery is not less true than it is revolting.

But there may be some persons into whose hands this tract may fall, so
imperfectly acquainted with the real character of Negro Slavery, as to be
shocked into partial, if not absolute incredulity, by the acts of inhuman
oppression and brutality related of Capt. I---- and his wife, and of Mr.
D----, the salt manufacturer of Turk's Island. Here, at least, such
persons may be disposed to think, there surely must be _some_
exaggeration; the facts are too shocking to be credible. The facts are
indeed shocking, but unhappily not the less credible on that account.
Slavery is a curse to the oppressor scarcely less than to the oppressed:
its natural tendency is to brutalize both. After a residence myself of six
years in a slave colony, I am inclined to doubt whether, as regards its
_demoralizing_ influence, the master is not even a greater object of
compassion than his bondman. Let those who are disposed to doubt the
atrocities related in this narrative, on the testimony of a sufferer,
examine the details of many cases of similar barbarity that have lately
come before the public, on unquestionable evidence. Passing over the