was proving false to a similar sacred charge,—­all these admirable traits are most miserably transmitted to you by my imperfect account; and when I assure you that his own narrative, full as it necessarily was of the details of his own heroism, was as simple, modest, and unpretending, as it was interesting and touching, I am sure you will agree with me that he must be a very rare man.  When I spoke with enthusiasm to his old father of his son’s noble conduct, and asked him if he was not proud of it, his sole reply was,—­’I am glad, madam, my son was not selfish.’

Now, E——­, I have often spoken with you and written to you of the disastrous effect of slavery upon the character of the white men implicated in it; many, among themselves, feel and acknowledge it to the fullest extent, and no one more than myself can deplore that any human being I love should be subjected to such baneful influences; but the devil must have his due, and men brought up in habits of peremptory command over their fellow men, and under the constant apprehension of danger, and awful necessity of immediate readiness to meet it, acquire qualities precious to themselves and others in hours of supreme peril such as this man passed through, saving by their exercise himself and all committed to his charge.  I know that the southern men are apt to deny the fact that they do live under an habitual sense of danger; but a slave population, coerced into obedience, though unarmed and half fed, is a threatening source of constant insecurity, and every southern woman to whom I have spoken on the subject, has admitted to me that they live in terror of their slaves.  Happy are such of them as have protectors like J——­ C——.  Such men will best avoid and best encounter the perils that may assail them from the abject subject, human element, in the control of which their noble faculties are sadly and unworthily employed.

Wednesday, 17th April.—­I rode to-day after breakfast, to Mrs. D——­’s, another of my neighbours, who lives full twelve miles off.  During the last two miles of my expedition, I had the white sand hillocks and blue line of the Atlantic in view.  The house at which I called was a tumble-down barrack of a dwelling in the woods, with a sort of poverty-stricken pretentious air about it, like sundry ‘proud planters’ dwellings that I have seen.  I was received by the sons as well as the lady of the house, and could not but admire the lordly rather than manly indifference, with which these young gentlemen, in gay guard chains and fine attire, played the gallants to me, while filthy, bare-footed half naked negro women brought in refreshments, and stood all the while fanning the cake, and sweetmeats, and their young masters, as if they had been all the same sort of stuff.  I felt ashamed for the lads.  The conversation turned upon Dr. H——­’s trial; for there has been a trial as a matter of form, and an acquittal as a matter of course; and the gentlemen