The editor is fully aware that he has not been able to present this affecting narrative in the simplicity and vivid freshness with which it fell from the lips of the narrator.  He has, however, as closely as possible, copied his manner, and in many instances his precise language.  THE SLAVE HAS SPOKEN FOR HIMSELF.  Acting merely as his amanuensis, he has carefully abstained from comments of his own.[A]

[Footnote A:  As the narrator was unable to read or write, it is quite possible that the orthography of some of the names of individuals mentioned in his story may not be entirely correct.  For instance, the name of his master may have been either Larrimer, or Larrrimore.]

The picture here presented to the people of the free states, is, in many respects, a novel one.  We all know something of Virginia and Kentucky Slavery.  We have heard of the internal slave trade—­the pangs of separation—­the slave ship with its “cargo of despair” bound for the New-Orleans market—­the weary journey of the chained Coffle to the cotton country.  But here, in a great measure, we have lost sight of the victims of avarice and lust.  We have not studied the dreadful economy of the cotton plantation, and know but little of the secrets of its unlimited despotism.

But in this narrative the scenes of the plantation rise before us, with a distinctness which approaches reality.  We hear the sound of the horn at daybreak, calling the sick and the weary to toil unrequited.  Woman, in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside her cotton row.  We hear the prayer for mercy answered with sneers and curses.  We look on the instruments of torture, and the corpses of murdered men.  We see the dogs, reeking hot from the chase, with their jaws foul with human blood.  We see the meek and aged Christian scarred with the lash, and bowed down with toil, offering the supplication of a broken heart to his Father in Heaven, for the forgiveness of his brutal enemy.  We hear, and from our inmost hearts repeat the affecting interrogatory of the aged slave, "How long, Oh Lord! how long!"

The editor has written out the details of this painful narrative with feelings of sorrow.  If there be any who feel a morbid satisfaction in dwelling upon the history of outrage and cruelty, he at least is not one of them.  His taste and habits incline him rather to look to the pure and beautiful in our nature—­the sunniest side of humanity—­its kindly sympathies—­its holy affections—­its charities and its love.  But, it is because he has seen that all which is thus beautiful and excellent in mind and heart, perishes in the atmosphere of slavery:  it is because humanity in the slave sinks down to a level with the brute and in the master gives place to the attributes of a fiend—­that he has not felt at liberty to decline the task.  He cannot sympathize with that abstract and delicate philanthropy, which hesitates to bring itself in contact with the sufferer, and which shrinks from the effort of searching out the extent of his afflictions.  The emblem of Practical Philanthropy is the Samaritan stooping over the wounded Jew.  It must be no fastidious hand which administers the oil and the wine, and binds up the unsightly gashes.