In remarkable contrast to Miss Beecher's case, was that of Miss Murray, a lady of talents and refinement, who held the position of maid of honor to Queen Victoria. Miss Murray visited the United States as a tourist with all of her predilections against slavery, but she happened to be one of those persons who, not satisfied with hearsay report, took the necessary trouble to inform herself intelligently upon the subject. In the course of her travels, she went into the Southern states, where she remained for some time as a guest on some of the plantations. She had the opportunity of observing the workings of domestic slavery as it actually existed and in all of its details, and she availed herself of that opportunity to make her own reflections. In letters to friends at home she gave the result of her actual observations and upon her return to England was induced to publish her letters. These letters represented slavery in the Southern states in a very different light from that in which it was accustomed to be presented to the British public, and the consequence was that Miss Murray was notified by the ministry that it was not desirable that she should longer occupy the relation she held to the Queen, as the views she expressed in regard to slavery were not consonant with the policy of the British government; so she was retired.
This illustrates the difference in the reception of two works on the subject of slavery given by the British public: one a work of fiction from a prejudiced writer, the other a matter-of-fact account of an eye witness of what she undertook to describe.
If British ministers could thus view the subject and be guilty of the injustice they perpetrated in Miss Murray's case, what could be expected of the great mass of British readers? It is hard to conceive how the glory or prosperity of a nation could be advanced by giving currency to fallacies, or suppressing the truth in regard to the actual condition of African slavery in the Southern states.
It would seem that as Great Britain had had so much to do with fostering the institution in those states, it would be rather gratifying, than otherwise, to its ministers and its people, to know that the descendants of those who had been ravished from their native country by the cupidity of their predecessors, were in a contented and comfortable condition. But such was not then "the policy of the government" and perhaps the philanthropic disciple of Exeter Hall who callously passed by the misery, want and immorality at her own door in the great city of London, while she shed tears over the imaginary woes pictured by Miss Beecher, would have been equally as indignant as the British ministers with Miss Murray for attempting to disabuse her of the delusion which caused those tears to flow.
Such is, and perhaps ever will be, the character of human philanthropy, that it troubles itself more about the sufferings which exist a long way off or only in imagination, than those which are before its eyes. One weeps over the trials of the hero or heroine in a novel or a play, while we pass the miserable child of want and sin in the street with perfect indifference. If slavery did not have its evils and its wrongs, it would not be a human institution, and as long as "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn," so long will evils and wrongs exist in every relation of human society. These exist in the relation of governor and governed, parent and child, husband and wife, master and servant, employer and employed, neighbor and neighbor, and are not excluded even from the church.
It is not pretended therefore that some masters did not abuse their servants, but these were rare instances, more perhaps than in any other relation of like, and if for no other reason, the great mass of masters were induced to treat their slaves well, because it was their interest to do so. Let any one compare the condition of the African in his native land, with that of the slaves of the South before the violent abolition of slavery, and then say whether that institution, which had produced such a vast improvement in his condition was so great a wrong after all.[B]
[B] Note—Professor Draper, in his "History of the American Civil War" thus represents the condition of the negro in his native land. "The Negro in Africa."
"On the west coast of Africa, the true negro-land, the thermometer not infrequently stands at 120° in the shade. For months together it remains, night and day, above 80°. The year is divided into the dry and the rainy season; the latter setting in with an incessant drizzle, continues until May. It culminates in the most awful thunderstorms and overwhelming rains. This is particularly the case in the mountains. When the dry season has fairly begun a pestiferous miasm is engendered from the vast quantities of vegetable matter brought down into the low lands by torrents. From the fevers thus arising the negroes themselves suffer severely.
"Moisture and heat, thus so fatal in their consequences to man, give to that country its amazing vegetable luxuriance. For hundreds of square miles there is an impenetrable jungle, infested with intolerable swarms of musquitoes. The interior is magnificently wooded. The mangrove thickets that line the river banks upon the coast are here replaced by a dark evergreen verdure, interspersed with palms and aloes. A rank herbage obstructs the course of the streams. The crocodile, hippopotamus, pelican find here a suitable abode. Monkeys swarm in the woods; in the more gloomy recesses live the chimpanzee, gorilla and other anthropoid apes approaching man most closely in stature and habits of life. In the open land—the prairie of equatorial Africa—game is infrequent; there are a few antelopes and horned cattle, but no horses. Man—or perhaps more truly woman—is the only beast of burden.
"Plantains, sweet potatoes, cassava, pumpkins, ground-nuts, Indian corn, the flesh of the deer, antelope, bear, snake, furnish to the negro, his food. He lives in a hut constructed of bamboo or flakes of bark, thatched with matting or palm leaves. His villages are often palisaded. Too lazy, except when severely pressed, to attend to the labors of the field, he compels his wives to plant the roots or seeds, and gather the scanty harvest. In hunting and in war, his main occupation, he relies upon cunning and will follow his prey with surprising agility, crawling like a snake prone upon the ground. He has little or no idea of property in land; slaves are his currency; he makes his purchase and pays his debts with them. 'A slave is a note of hand that may be discounted or pawned. He is a bill of exchange that carries himself to his destination, and pays a debt bodily. He is a tax that walks corporeally into the chieftain's treasury.'