Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/295

 a number of their publications, besides the newspaper that I spoke of. I have read them all attentively, and I can safely say, that the vulgar and current charge against them of stimulating the slaves to revolt is totally unfounded. The revolt which they have attempted to stimulate, and the revolt, I am very much inclined to think, of which our committees of vigilance are most afraid, is, a revolt of Christian consciences against the evils and enormities of slavery.

"But, although I admit the rectitude of their motives, I do not any the less on that account condemn their conduct. You can judge from my own case the awkward position in which they have placed every southern well-wisher of the negroes. ‘The only result, I am afraid, will be, to tighten the bonds of the slaves, to check all efforts that have been making for their mental and moral improvement, and to put the most serious obstacles in the way of that scheme of colonization, which is the only remedy for the sore evils of slavery which the south seems in the least to tolerate."





, perhaps from professional habit, seemed to run upon such subjects as occupied his mind, into a sort of lengthened discourse, and I let him go on without interruption. Mr Mason, I had observed during this conversation, had not let drop a single word; and after Mr Telfair had left us, I felt some curiosity to draw him out. I accordingly put to him several questions, by way of getting at his opinion of the colonization scheme. "I am a member," he said, "of the Colonization Society, secretary, in fact, of the same branch of which Mr Telfair is president; one of my servants, a superior man, who evinced a disposition to go, I set free and sent to Liberia; but I am sorry to say he died of the 