“My good fellow,” said the mate, “if you can get our steward out a limbo, you’ll be doing us all a good turn, and we’ll remember you as long as we pull a brace.”

“You may reckon on me, Mister Mate; and if I a’n’t down before six o’clock, my father will certainly take the matter in hand; and he and Mazyck belong to the secession party, and control things just as they please at Columbia.”  So saying, George bid the old mate good morning, and bent his course for the head of the wharf.

“There,” said the old mate, “it’s just what I thought all along; I knew my presentiment would come true.  I’ll wager a crown they treat Manuel like a dog in that old prison, and don’t get him out until he is mildewed; or perhaps they’ll sell him for a slave a’cos he’s got curly black hair and a yellow skin.  Now I’m a hardy sailor, but I’ve sailed around the world about three times, and know something of nature.  Now ye may note it as clear as the north star, prisons in slave countries a’n’t fit for dogs.  They may tell about their fine, fat, slick, saucy niggers, but a slave’s a slave—­his master’s property, a piece of merchandise, his chattel, or his football-thankful for what his master may please to give him, and inured to suffer the want of what he withholds.  Yes, he must have his thinking stopped by law, and his back lashed at his master’s will, if he don’t toe the mark in work.  Men’s habits and associations form their feelings and character, and it’s just so with them fellers; they’ve become so accustomed to looking upon a nigger as a mere tool of labor—­lordin’ it over him, starving him, and lashing him-that they associate the exercise of the same feelings and actions with every thing connected with labor, without paying any respect to a poor white man’s feelings,” continued the mate, addressing himself to his second, as they sat upon the companion, waiting for the Captain to come on board and give further orders.

Never were words spoken with more truth.  The negro is reduced to the lowest and worst restrictions, even by those who are considered wealthy planters and good masters.  We say nothing of those whose abuse of their negroes by starvation and punishment forms the theme of complaint among slaveholders themselves.  His food is not only the coarsest that can, be procured, but inadequate to support the system for the amount of labor required.  Recourse to other means becomes necessary.  This is supplied by giving the slave his task, which, so far as our observation extends, is quite sufficient for any common, laborer’s day’s-work.  This done, his master is served; and as an act of kindness, (which Sambo is taught to appreciate as such,) he is allowed to work on his own little cultivated patch to raise a few things, which mass’r (in many cases) very condescendingly sells in the market, and returns those little comforts, which are so much appreciated by slaves on a plantation-tea, molasses, coffee, and tobacco-and now and then a little