In Such Cases The Slave Is Compelled To Give An Account Of What He Has Earned During The Week, At His Owner's House, Where He Attends On Saturday Evenings For The Purpose.

A fixed sum is generally demanded, in proportion to the average value of such labour at the time.

I was informed that it frequently happens, that the master exacts the utmost the slave can earn, so that the miserable pittance left is scarcely sufficient to sustain nature; this, no doubt, accounts for the haggard, care-worn appearance of such labourers, for, with few exceptions, I found hands thus sent out, more miserably clad and less hale than the common run of slaves. On the other hand, if a slave is a good handicraftsman, he is able to earn more than his master demands; such instances are, however, rare. These are the men who, by dint of hard work and thrifty habits, accumulate sufficient eventually to obtain manumission. There is, in most cases, a strict eye kept on such hands, and if the boon is attained, it is in general by stealthy means.

At my boarding-house in Charleston, I often saw negro laundresses who called for linen; one of these in particular, I noticed, seemed to be in habitual low spirits; on one occasion she appeared to be in unusual distress, in consequence of one of the boarders leaving the house in her debt. She said that her owner would certainly punish her if she did not make up the required sum, and where to procure it she could not tell. I was touched by her tale, and immediately opened a subscription amongst the boarders in the house, and succeeded in collecting a trifle over the amount she had lost; this I handed her, and she went on her way rejoicing.

I was told by a Carolinian who lodged at this house, that the practice of sending out slaves to earn money in the way I have described, has been in vogue from time immemorial, and that it was such a profitable mode of realizing by slave labour, that it was followed more extensively in that state now than formerly.

I will conclude this part of my narration, by quoting the words of a powerful writer on the subject of slavery as I have witnessed its operation in America.

"Amongst the afflicting ills which the wickedness of man has established upon earth, the greatest beyond compare is slavery. Indeed, its consequences are so dreadful, the sins which it engenders are of such gigantic proportions, and all its accompaniments are so loathsome and hideous, that the minds of benevolent persons revolt from contemplating it, as offering a spectacle of crime and cruelty, too deep for a remedy, and too vast for sympathy. Slavery is an infinite evil, the calculations of its murders, its rapine, its barbarities, its deeds of lust and licentiousness, though authenticated by the most unquestionable authorities, would produce a total of horrors too great to be believed; and to narrate the history of these cruelties which have been perpetrated by American slave-masters within the last five years alone, would be to tell idle fables in the opinions of those who have not deeply studied the tragical subject.

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