Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/167

 and philanthropic as it was, it would not make either corn or tobacco. She might talk as she pleased; but if she expected to live by her plantation, she must manage it like other people. Every body who knew any thing about the matter would tell her, that if she wished to make a crop she must keep a smart overseer, put a whip into his hands, and give him unlimited authority to use it. If she would do this, she might justly call herself the mistress of the plantation; but as long as she followed her present plan, she would be no better than the slave of her own servants; and her philanthropy would end in their being sold for debt, and in her being left a beggar.

These warm remonstrances made a deep impression upon Mrs Montgomery. She could not deny that the plantation had produced scarcely any thing since she had come into possession of it; and she was conscious that after all her labors in their behalf, her servants were discontented, idle and insubordinate. However, she did not feel inclined to yield the point. She still maintained that her ideas on the mutual relation of master and servant, were the obvious dictates of justice and humanity, which no one could despise or overlook, who made any pretensions to virtue or to conscience. She argued that the system, which she was attempting to introduce, was a good one; and that nothing was wanting except an overseer who had sense enough to carry it into judicious operation. Possibly there was something of truth in this. If she could have found a man like major Thornton, and made an overseer of him, she might perhaps have succeeded. But such men are seldom found any where, and in slave-holding America, very seldom indeed. Take the American overseers together, and they are the most ignorant, intractable, stupid, obstinate, and self-willed race that ever existed. What could a woman do, who could only act through assistance of this sort, and who had the prejudices of the whole neighborhood actively excited against her? Things went on from bad to worse. The ready money which her husband had left was all spent, and her affairs soon became so entangled and embarrassed, that she was obliged to call upon-her brother for assistance. He refused in the most positive