and, passing through the market in the early part of the day,
was pleased with the young slave's appearance, and his dwelling
the quadroon found a much better home than often falls to the lot
of a slave sold in the New Orleans market.




CHAPTER VII

THE SLAVE-HOLDING PARSON


THE Rev. James Wilson was a native of the State of Connecticut,
where he was educated for the ministry in the Methodist persuasion.
His father was a strict follower of John Wesley, and spared
no pains in his son's education, with the hope that he would
one day be as renowned as the leader of his sect.
James had scarcely finished his education at New Haven,
when he was invited by an uncle, then on a visit to his father,
to spend a few months at Natchez in Mississippi. Young Wilson
accepted his uncle's invitation, and accompanied him to the South.
Few young men, and especially clergymen, going fresh from college
to the South, but are looked upon as geniuses in a small way,
and who are not invited to all the parties in the neighborhood.
Mr. Wilson was not an exception to this rule.
The society into which he was thrown, on his arrival at Natchez,
was too brilliant for him not to be captivated by it, and,
as might have been expected, he succeeded in captivating
a plantation with seventy slaves if not the heart of the lady