Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/202

 their demands, as the overseer himself generally would do, to the performance of the field labor. They have a thousand little spites to gratify; a thousand purposes of their own to accomplish. They are in fact, the absolute masters of every thing which any of their gang may happen to possess; and the persons of the women are as much at their disposal as at that of the overseer, or the master. Even, if by chance, a driver should happen not to be disposed to abuse his authority, the dread of losing his situation, and the knowledge that all the deficiencies of any of his subordinates will be visited upon his head, makes him of necessity, hasty, harsh, and cruel.

Heaven is my witness that while I held the office of driver, my great object was, to use the authority which it gave me, to alleviate as far as I could, the misery of my companions. My gang consisted of the Carleton bands, with whom I had long been connected, and whom I looked upon as friends and fellow sufferers. Many is the time, when I have seen one and another fainting under his task, and unable to finish it, that I have dropped the whip, seized the hoe, and instead of the stimulus of the lash, have used the encouragement of aid and assistance. This I did repeatedly; though Mr Martin, more than once, when he found me so employed, expressed his disapprobation, and told me it was no way, and would only bring the station of driver into contempt.

But it is no part of my purpose to write an eulogium on myself; and I shall not hesitate to confess the whole truth. There were times that I abused my office; — and I verily believe that no man ever exercised an unlimited authority who did not abuse it. The consciousness of my power, made me insolent and impatient; — and with all my hatred, my hearty, experimental hatred of tyranny, the whip had not long been placed in my hands, before I caught myself in the act of playing the tyrant.

Power is ever dangerous and intoxicating. Human. nature cannot bear it. It must be constantly checked, controlled and limited, or it declines inevitably into tyranny. Even all the endearments of the family connection; the tenderness of connubial love, and the heart-binding ties