dollars, when his master failed.  As the slave has no right to property, Jack’s earnings belonged by law to his master, and they were attached by the creditors, and taken to pay the master’s debts.  Jack then ’changed hands,’ received a new owner, who also consented to his buying himself, at about the price previously agreed on.  Nothing discouraged, he went to work again.  Night and day, he toiled, and it surprised every one to see so much energy and fixedness of purpose in a negro.  At last, after four more years of labor, he accomplished his purpose, and received his free-papers.  He had worked seven years—­as long as Jacob toiled for Rachel—­for his freedom, and like the old patriarch found himself cheated at last.  I was present when he received his papers from his owner, a Mr. William H. Lippitt—­who still resides at Wilmington—­and I shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion; he sung and danced and laughed and wept, till my conscience smote me for holding my own niggers, when freedom might give them so much happiness.  Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and then, for three days afterward, lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife and children having no effect on him.  He swore he was free, and would do as he ‘d——­d pleased.’  He had previously been a class-leader in his church, but after getting free-papers, he forsook his previous associates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room.  He neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step he went down, till in five years he stink into a wretched grave.  That was the effect of freedom on him, and it would be so on all his race.’

‘It is clear,’ I replied, ’he could not bear freedom, but that does not prove he might not have ‘endured’ it if he had never been a slave.  His overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to his excesses and his ruin.  According to your view, neither the black nor the poor white is competent to take care of himself.  The Almighty, therefore, has laid upon you a triple burden; you not only have to provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you, the black and the clay-eating white man.  The poor nigger has a hard time, but it seems to me you have a harder one.’

’Well, it’s a fact, we do.  I often think that if it wasn’t for the color and the odor, I’d be glad to exchange places with my man Jim.’

The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way, that excited my risibilities amazingly, but before I could reply, the carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced: 

‘We’s h’ar, massa, and de prayin’ am gwine on.’

Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered the latter fact some time previous to our arrival at the church-door, for the preacher was shouting at the top of his lungs.  He evidently thought the good Lord either a long way off, or very hard of hearing.  Not wishing to disturb the congregation at their devotions, we loitered near the doorway until the prayer was over, and in the mean time I glanced around the premises.