A. WATSON. 
June 16, 1838.”

Now, who is this A. Watson, who proclaims through a newspaper, his determination to put to the torture this youth of eighteen, and to Lynch to his ‘satisfaction’ whoever has given a cup of cold water to the panting fugitive.  Is he some low miscreant beneath public contempt?  Nay, verily, he is a ‘gentleman of property and standing,’ one of the wealthiest planters and largest slaveholders in Florida.  He resides in the vicinity of St. Augustine, and married the daughter of the late Thomas C. Morton, Esq. one of the first merchants in New York.

We may mention in this connection the well known fact, that many wealthy planters make it a rule never to employ a physician among their slaves.  Hon. William Smith, Senator in Congress, from South Carolina, from 1816 to 1823, and afterwards from 1826 to 1831, is one of this number.  He owns a number of large plantations in the south western states.  One of these, borders upon the village of Huntsville, Alabama.  The people of that village can testify that it is a part of Judge Smith’s system never to employ a physician even in the most extreme cases.  If the medical skill of the overseer, or of the slaves themselves, can contend successfully with the disease, they live, if not, they die.  At all events, a physician is not to be called.  Judge Smith was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States three years since.

The reader will recall a similar fact in the testimony of Rev. W.T.  Allan, son of Rev. Dr. Allan, of Huntsville, (see p. 47,) who says that Colonel Robert H. Watkins, a wealthy planter, in Alabama, and a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR in 1836, who works on his plantations three hundred slaves, ’After employing a physician for some time among his negroes, he ceased to do so, alledging as the reason, that it was cheaper to lose a few negroes every year than to pay a physician.’

It is a fact perfectly notorious, that the late General Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, who was the largest slaveholder in the United States, and probably the wealthiest man south of the Potomac, was excessively cruel in the treatment of his slaves.  The anecdote of him related by a clergyman, on page 29, is perfectly characteristic.

For instances of barbarous inhumanity of various kinds, and manifested by persons BELONGING TO THE MOST RESPECTABLE CIRCLES OF SOCIETY, the reader can consult the following references:—­Testimony of Rev. John Graham, p. 25, near the bottom; of Mr. Poe, p. 26, middle; of Rev. J. O. Choules, p. 39, middle; of Rev. Dr. Channing, p. 41, top; of Mr. George A. Avery, p. 44, bottom; of Rev. W.T.  Allan, p. 47; of Mr. John M. Nelson, p. 51, bottom; of Dr. J.C.  Finley, p. 61, top; of Mr. Dustin, p. 66, bottom; of Mr. John Clarke, p. 87; of Mr. Nathan Cole, p. 89, middle; Rev. William Dickey, p. 93; Rev. Francis Hawley, p. 97; of Mr. Powell, p. 100, middle; of Rev. P. Smith p. 102.