But there was a still wider contrast between my master and his own children, eight in number, when I left him.  His eldest daughter, the flower of the family, married a miserable and reckless gambler.  His eldest son was kind-hearted, and rather a favourite with the slaves on that account; but he had no strength of mind or weight of character.  His education was limited, and he had no disposition or tact for business of any kind.  He died at thirty-six, intestate; leaving his second-wife (a sister to his father’s second wife) with several orphan children, a widow with a small estate deeply embarrassed.  The second son was once sent to West Point to fit for an officer.  After being there a short time, however, he became unsteady, and commenced the study of medicine, but he soon gave that up and preferred to live at home and flog the slaves; and by them was cordially dreaded and disliked, and among themselves he was vulgarly nicknamed on account of his cruel and filthy habits.

These two families will afford a fair illustration of the gloomy history of many others that I could name.  This decline of slaveholding families is a subject of observation and daily remark among slaves; they are led to observe every change in the pecuniary, moral, and social state of the families they belong to, from the fact, that as the old master declines, or as his children are married off, they are expecting to fall into their hands, or in case of insolvency on the part of the old master, they expect to be sold; in either case, it involves a change of master—­a subject to which they cannot be indifferent.  And it is very rarely the case that a slave’s condition is benefited by passing from the old master into the hands of one of his children.  Owing to the causes I have mentioned, the decline is so rapid and marked, in almost every point of view, that the children of slaveholders are universally inferior to themselves, mentally, morally, physically, as well as pecuniarily, especially so in the latter point of view; and this is a matter of most vital concern to the slaves.  The young master not being able to own as many slaves as his father, usually works what he has more severely, and being more liable to embarrassment, the slaves’ liability to be sold at an early day is much greater.  For the same reason, slaves have a deep interest, generally, in the marriage of a young mistress.  Very generally the daughters of slaveholders marry inferior men; men who seek to better their own condition by a wealthy connection.  The slaves who pass into the hands of the young master has had some chance to become acquainted with his character, bad as it may be; but the young mistress brings her slaves a new, and sometimes an unknown master.  Sometimes these are the sons of already broken down slaveholders.  In other cases they are adventurers from the north who remove to the south, and who readily become the most cruel masters.

APPENDIX.