common number of lashes inflicted was fifty or eighty; and this I saw not once or twice, but so frequently that I can not tell the number of times I have seen it.  So frequently, that my own heart was becoming so hardened that I could witness with comparative indifference, the female writhe under the lash, and her shrieks and cries for mercy ceased to pierce my heart with that keenness, or give me that anguish which they first caused.  It was not always that I could learn their crimes; but of those I did learn, the most common was non-performance of tasks.  I have seen men strip and receive from one to three hundred strokes of the whip and paddle.  My studies and meditations were almost nightly interrupted by the cries of the victims of cruelty and avarice.  Tom, a slave of Col.  N. obtained permission of his overseer on Sunday, to visit his son, on a neighboring plantation, belonging in part to his master, but neglected to take a “pass.”  Upon its being demanded by the other overseer, he replied that he had permission to come, and that his having a mule was sufficient evidence of it, and if he did not consider it as such, he could take him up.  The overseer replied he would take him up; giving him at the same time a blow on the arm with a stick he held in his hand, sufficient to lame it for some time.  The negro collared him, and threw him; and on the overseer’s commanding him to submit to be tied and whipped, he said he would not be whipped by him but would leave it to massa J. They came to massa J.’s.  I was there.  After the overseer had related the case as above, he was blamed for not shooting or stabbing him at once.—­After dinner the negro was tied, and the whip given to the overseer, and he used it with a severity that was shocking.  I know not how many lashes were given, but from his shoulders to his heels there was not a spot unridged! and at almost every stroke the blood flowed.  He could not have received less than 300, well laid on.  But his offence was great, almost the greatest known, laying hands on a white man!  Had he struck the overseer, under any provocation, he would have been in some way disfigured, perhaps by the loss of his ears, in addition to a whipping:  or he might have been hung.  The most common cause of punishments is, not finishing tasks.

[Footnote 14:  A piece of oak timber two and a half feet long, flat and wide at one end.]

“But it would be tedious mentioning further particulars.  The negro has no other inducement to work but the lash; and as man never acts without motive, the lash must be used so long as all other motives are withheld.  Hence corporeal punishment is a necessary part of slavery.

“Punishments for runaways are usually severe.  Once whipping is not sufficient.  I have known runaways to be whipped for six or seven nights in succession for one offence.  I have known others who, with pinioned hands, and a chain extending from an iron collar on their neck, to the saddle of their master’s horse, have been driven at a smart trot, one or two hundred miles, being compelled to ford water courses, their drivers, according to their own confession, not abating a whit in the rapidity of their journey for the case of the slave.  One tied a kettle of sand to his slave to render his journey more arduous.