Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/357

Rh here, and among them that free negro-woman who had endeavoured to aid the young slave in making her escape; she had a very good and frank countenance, but was condemned to remain here for five years. The room in which these women were placed was large, light, and clean, and my companion, Mrs. G., was received by the black female prisoners with evident affection and joy. She belongs to a society of ladies, who here (as well as throughout the United States) are organised for the purpose of visiting the prisoners (but who in the Slave States forget the innocent prisoner), and it was very apparent that the most cordial understanding existed between her and these black prisoners.

The rich planter who maltreated and killed his slave, and was therefore sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the house of correction, ought to have been in it, but he was not yet brought hither, and probably he would purchase his exemption from the punishment. Mammon is mighty.

There exists in Virginia a growing feeling of the burden and the guilt of slavery, as is the case in all the middle slave-states of America, which would be much more benefited by white than black labour, and which see their development, both physical and spiritual, restricted and hampered by the institution of slavery; and I believe, what I have been credibly informed is the case, that these states would have already shaken themselves from the yoke of slavery, and that Virginia indeed would have done so some years since, if they had not been withheld, and had not been irritated to antagonism by the unwise and unjust abolitionism of the North.

I do not say that this is high ground for them to take, because no injustice should prevent our doing that which is just and wise; but it is natural, and, to a certain extent, I myself can sympathise in it.

But now that the Northern States, for the preservation