Of the general character of Mr. and Mrs. Wood, I would not designedly give any unfair impression.  Without implicitly adopting either the ex parte view of Mary Prince, or the unmeasured encomiums of their friends, I am willing to believe them to be, on the whole, fair, perhaps favourable, specimens of colonial character.  Let them even be rated, if you will, in the very highest and most benevolent class of slave-holders; and, laying everything else entirely out of view, let Mr. Wood’s conduct in this affair be tried exclusively by the facts established beyond dispute, and by his own statement of the case in his letter to Mr. Taylor.  But then, I ask, if the very best and mildest of your slave-owners can act as Mr. Wood is proved to have acted, what is to be expected of persons whose mildness, or equity, or common humanity no one will dare to vouch for?  If such things are done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?—­And what else then can Colonial Slavery possibly be, even in its best estate, but a system incurably evil and iniquitous?—­I require no other data—­I need add no further comment.]

The case affords a most instructive illustration of the true spirit of the slave system, and of the pretensions of the slave-holders to assert, not merely their claims to a “vested right” in the labour of their bondmen, but to an indefeasible property in them as their “absolute chattels.”  It furnishes a striking practical comment on the assertions of the West Indians that self-interest is a sufficient check to the indulgence of vindictive feelings in the master; for here is a case where a man (a respectable and benevolent man as his friends aver,) prefers losing entirely the full price of the slave, for the mere satisfaction of preventing a poor black woman from returning home to her husband!  If the pleasure of thwarting the benevolent wishes of the Anti-Slavery Society in behalf of the deserted negro, be an additional motive with Mr. Wood, it will not much mend his wretched plea.

* * * * *

I may here add a few words respecting the earlier portion of Mary Prince’s narrative.  The facts there stated must necessarily rest entirely,—­since we have no collateral evidence,—­upon their intrinsic claims to probability, and upon the reliance the reader may feel disposed, after perusing the foregoing pages, to place on her veracity.  To my judgment, the internal evidence of the truth of her narrative appears remarkably strong.  The circumstances are related in a tone of natural sincerity, and are accompanied in almost every case with characteristic and minute details, which must, I conceive, carry with them full conviction to every candid mind that this negro woman has actually seen, felt, and suffered all that she so impressively describes; and that the picture she has given of West Indian slavery is not less true than it is revolting.