Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/346

326 his conversation,) but good natured rather than bitter.

Such was the beginning of a companionship which gradually ripened into something of a confidential intimacy. I did not conceal from Mr John Colter (for that was the name by which he chose to be known to me) my knowledge of: his rather dubious profession; at the same time, I was willing to accept, at their full value, his graces, talents, agreeable parts, and the frequent indications which he gave, at least in words, of a naturally generous and kindly disposition. Why not make allow-ance for his position and circumstances? Why not regard him with as much charity as is asked generally for slaveholders?

As if to confirm me in this toleration, by which he was evidently not a little flattered, and to which he did not seem much accustomed, in the course of a second night's stoppage, in a ramble by moonlight, Mr Colter having at hand no more pigeons to pluck, let me pretty fully into his history.

It appeared that he was the son of a wealthy planter, or of one who had once been wealthy, and who, while he lived, had maintained the reputation of being so. He had, of course, been brought up in habits of great profusion and extravagance. His literary instruction had not been neglected, and he had been sent to travel a year or two in Europe, where he spent a-great deal of money, and fell into very dissipated habits, and whence he was recalled by the death of his father; whose estate, when it came to be settled, proved insolvent, the plantations and slaves being covered by mortgages, and a large family of children left wholly unprovided for.

Thus thrown entirely on his own resources, he had great difficulty in finding means to live. The general resource of decayed families was to emigrate to the new lands of the west; but this was hardly possible, unless one could take a few slaves with him, and he had none, nor the means of procuring