[406] Received, from my warm-hearted Irish friend, Mr. Wood, 50 dollars, an unsolicited loan, although he knows me not. Here is faith, greater than almost any I have yet found in America.
The slave-owners, in this state, must maintain all their helpless and infirm slaves, or kill them privately. They cannot become chargeable to the parish, or state. O humanity, where art thou!!! As a punishment for the lassitude of age, or the idleness of youth, a nigger is stripped naked, well flogged, then dressed all over with treacle (or molasses) and hung up by his heels on a tree, in a swamp full of flies and mosquitoes, which lick up the sweets, and sting and bleed him dreadfully into the bargain. He is then a living lump of inflammation. What ingenious torture this! how refined! how honourable to the taste and ingenuity of a nation, the freest of the free, and who boast of superabundant polish and civilization!
When with my cousin, Major Rugely, in May last, I was presented with a beautiful black female baby, that could just creep, and which was given and intended to be sent as a keepsake to my lady in England; but I, not being qualified for a nurse at sea, nor indeed by land, declined this well-intended gift. The Major then possessed a poor negro, who wishing to die, was constantly detected in the act of eating dirt or lumps of earth, a habit which procured for him a cow-hiding daily! I might have had him, and branded him with my own [407] brand, F. As cattle it is necessary so to distinguish one herd from another, and if they stray, or are stolen, to advertise their persons, correctly describing the mark, or brand, which is deeply burnt in, and never obliterated, unless it is cut out!
Sunday, 23rd.—I bade, this morning, a willing and final farewell to Charleston city, and to all its bugs, mosquitoes, negroes, and alligators, and a race of people, many of whom seem not much better than they. I left behind me some copies of J. Wright's pamphlet on slavery, for his Excellency, Governor Geddiss, the Attorney-General Haines, the editor of the Courier, Mr. Thomas Mitchel, and Mr. Judge King, the latter of whom promised to keep his a profound secret. The press seems here to be more enslaved than under the most despotic government. At night I found myself at sea, 60 miles from Charleston, in the President for New York. Fare, 25 dollars.
25th.—I saw two young alligators emigrating to the north. Mr. Morse (the son of the geographer, Dr. Morse)[147] states, that at New Haven University, Connecticut, an education of four years costs only 1,000 dollars, board included. The same gentleman states, that in Connecticut, republicanism and equality exist in greater purity than in any other part of the union. The farmers and people generally live economically and comfortably, surrounded with a cheap abundance of all the [408] necessaries of life, but they keep no domestic servants, male or female. They are their own servants. As to negroes, scarcely one is to be seen in a day's travel. The people generally are so well educated in this state, that almost any man is qualified for a schoolmaster in any of the sister states. Dr. Paley's moral philosophy is a text book in their college.
26th.—A young gentleman on board, from the state of Albania, says that Mobile, out of 600, lost 530 inhabitants, by the yellow fever last summer. In winter the population is from 2 to 3,000.
A dashing English gentleman travelling through this state with a white servant behind him, rode up to a one-room log-tavern, and begged the landlord to let him have a room to himself, which was agreed to. In a few minutes up came two native travellers, equals, who entered without ceremony, when the Englishman began to curse the landlord for permitting the intrusion. He replied, that he meant that the gentleman should have the room to himself until other travellers came up.
29th.—At ten this morning we made Sandyhook light-house. The scenery here, all the way up to the city of New York, is delightful. Perhaps the views presented by this city and neighbourhood are unequalled, both as it respects the beauties of nature and the works of art. I landed at six o'clock, and was introduced by Messrs. Morse [409] and Co. to the boarding-house of Mrs. Mudge, where I met Mr. Dwight, a brother of the late eminent Dr. Dwight, now editor of the New York Advertiser.[148] In person this gentleman is said to be much like the Doctor.
Sunday, 30th.—I accompanied Mr. Morse to the splendid Presbyterian church of the eloquent Dr. Romaine,[149] whose prayers are the most appropriate in manner and matter, and whose sermons are, with the exception of Dr. Storton's, superior to any I have heard in America. On this day, the appearance of this large city is most orderly and christian-like. This laudable change is attributed to Sunday-schools. All places of worship are thronged. How unlike Washington city! Mr. Morse states that not only in New York, but in all the east, a religious feeling generally pervades the people.
May 1st.—Passed over to Brooklyn, a beautiful gay-looking village of great extent in Long Island, in quest of my old friend, and western fellow-traveller, Mr. Wheeler, whom I found three miles from the city, living on a hired farm of about 30 acres of arable land, and six in wood, or rather cedar, on which is a beautiful house, to which I was warmly welcomed. It consists of six small rooms and piazzas on each side, standing in an orchard fronting the public road, which, for four miles, is like one continued suburban village all the way from New York. The farm cost, two [410] years ago, without a house or well, 3,500 dollars, and the house and well have since cost 1,500 dollars. Mr. Wheeler has hired this situation for one year only, at the rent of 300 dollars, ten dollars an acre, all poor and long-exhausted land, insomuch that nothing can be raised without manure, which is bought at one dollar per load, and hauled three miles.