“What I have here said, respecting the condition and treatment of slaves, appertains, it must be remembered, to those only who are upon the larger plantations in Virginia; the lot of such as are unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the lower class of white people, and of hard task-masters in towns, is very different.  In the Carolinas and Georgia again, slavery presents itself in very different colors from what it does even in its worst form in Virginia.  I am told that it is no uncommon thing there, to see gangs of negroes staked at a horse race, and to see these unfortunate beings bandied about from one set of drunken gamblers to another for days together.  How much to be deprecated are the laws which suffer such abuses to exist!  Yet these are the laws enacted by the people who boast of their love of liberty and independence, and who presume to say, that it is in the breasts of Americans alone that the blessings of freedom are held in just estimation.”—­Isaac Weld, Jr., “Travels through the States of North America and the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada,” 1795, 1796, and 1797. (London, 1799.)

JOHN DAVIS’S THOUGHTS ON SLAVERY

“The negroes on the plantation, including house-servants and children, amounted to a hundred; of whom the average price being respectively seventy pounds, made them aggregately worth seven thousand to their possessor.

“Two families lived in one hut, and such was their unconquerable propensity to steal, that they pilfered from each other.  I have heard masters lament this defect in their negroes.  But what else can be expected from man in so degraded a condition, that among the ancients the same word implied both a slave and a thief.

“Since the introduction of the culture of cotton in the State of South Carolina, the race of negroes has increased.  Both men and women work in the field, and the labour of the rice plantation formerly prevented the pregnant negroes from bringing forth a long-lived offspring.  It may be established as a maxim that on a plantation where there are many children, the work has been moderate. . . .

“Of genius in negroes many instances may be recorded.  It is true that Mr. Jefferson has pronounced the Poems of Phillis Wheatley, below the dignity of criticism, and it is seldom safe to differ in judgment from the author of Notes on Virginia.  But her conceptions are often lofty, and her versification often surpasses with unexpected refinement.  Ladd, the Carolina poet, in enumerating the bards of his country, dwells with encomium on “Wheatley’s polished verse”; nor is his praise undeserved, for often it will be found to glide in the stream of melody.  Her lines on Imagination have been quoted with rapture by Imley of Kentucky, and Steadman the Guinea Traveler; but I have ever thought her happiest production the Goliath of Gath.

“Of Ignatius Sancho, Mr. Jefferson also speaks neglectingly; and remarks, that he substitutes sentiment for argumentation.  But I know not that argumentation is required in a familiar epistle; and Sancho, I believe, has only published his correspondence.” —­John Davis, “Travels of four years and a half in the United States of America during 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802,” p. 86.