“I received my information from a lady in the west of high respectability and great moral worth,—­but think it best to withhold her name, although the statement was not made in confidence.

“My informant stated that she sat at dinner once in company with General Wade Hampton, and several others; that the conversation turned upon the treatment of their servants, &c.; when the General undertook to entertain the company with the relation of an experiment he had made in the feeding of his slaves on cotton seed.  He said that he first mingled one-fourth cotton seed with three-fourths corn, on which they seemed to thrive tolerably well; that he then had measured out to them equal quantities of each, which did not seem to produce any important change; afterwards he increased the quantity of cotton seed to three-fourths, mingled with one-fourth corn, and then he declared, with an oath, that ‘they died like rotten sheep!!’ It is but justice to the lady to state that she spoke of his conduct with the utmost indignation; and she mentioned also that he received no countenance from the company present, but that all seemed to look at each other with astonishment.  I give it to you just as I received it from one who was present, and whose character for veracity is unquestionable.

“It is proper to add that I had previously formed an acquaintance with Dr. Witherspoon, now of Alabama, if alive; whose former residence was in South Carolina; from whom I received a particular account of the manner of feeding and treating slaves on the plantations of General Wade Hampton, and others in the same part of the State; and certainly no one could listen to the recital without concluding that such masters and overseers as he described must have hearts like the nether millstone.  The cotton seed experiment I had heard of before also, as having been made in other parts of the south; consequently, I was prepared to receive as true the above statement, even if I had not been so well acquainted with the high character of my informant.”

2.  QUANTITY OF FOOD

The legal allowance of food for slaves in North Carolina, is in the words of the law, “a quart of corn per day.”  See Haywood’s Manual, 525.  The legal allowance in Louisiana is more, a barrel [flour barrel] of corn, (in the ear,) or its equivalent in other grain, and a pint of salt a month.  In the other slave states the amount of food for the slaves is left to the option of the master.

Thos.  Clay, Esq., of Georgia, a slave holder, in his address before the Georgia Presbytery, 1833.

“The quantity allowed by custom is a peck of corn a week!”

The Maryland Journal, and Baltimore Advertiser, May 30, 1788.

“A single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity of provision for a hard-working slave; to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though rarely, added.”