d. Her
religious knowledge, notwithstanding the pious care of her Moravian
instructors in Antigua, is still but very limited, and her views of
christianity indistinct; but her profession, whatever it may have of
imperfection, I am convinced, has nothing of insincerity. In short, we
consider her on the whole as respectable and well-behaved a person in her
station, as any domestic, white or black, (and we have had ample
experience of both colours,) that we have ever had in our service.

But after all, Mary's character, important though its exculpation be to
her, is not really the point of chief practical interest in this case.
Suppose all Mr. Wood's defamatory allegations to be true--suppose him to
be able to rake up against her out of the records of the Antigua police,
or from the veracious testimony of his brother colonists, twenty stories
as bad or worse than what he insinuates--suppose the whole of her own
statement to be false, and even the whole of her conduct since she came
under our observation here to be a tissue of hypocrisy;--suppose all
this--and leave the negro woman as black in character as in
complexion,[21]--yet it would affect not the main facts--which are
these.--1. Mr. Wood, not daring in England to punish this woman
arbitrarily, as he would have done in the West Indies, drove her out of
his house, or left her, at least, only the alternative of returning
instantly to Antigua, with the certainty of severe treatment there, or
submitting in silence to what she considered intolerable usage in his
household. 2. He has since obstinately persisted in refusing her
manumission, to enable her to return home in security, though repeatedly
offered more than ample compensation for her value as a slave; and this on
various frivolous pretexts, but really, and indeed not unavowedly, in
order to _punish_ her for leaving his service in England, though he
himself had professed to give her that option. These unquestionable facts
speak volumes.[22]

[Footnote 21: If it even were so, how strong a plea of palliation might not
the poor negro bring, by adducing the neglect of her various owners to
afford religious instruction or moral discipline, and the habitual
influence of their evil _example_ (to say the very least,) before her
eyes? What moral good could she possibly learn--what moral evil could she
easily escape, while under the uncontrolled power of such masters as she
describes Captain I---- and Mr. D---- of Turk's Isl