, whose
labor is extorted from them without remorse, from youth to age, and
whose hopeless existence seems to me sadder than suffering itself,
affects me with an intolerable sense of impotent pity for them.... Then,
too, the disrepute in which honest and honorable labor is held, by being
thus practiced only by a degraded class, is most pernicious.

The negroes here, who see me row and walk hard in the sun, lift heavy
burthens, and make various exertions which are supposed to be their
peculiar _privilege_ in existence, frequently remonstrate with me, and
desire me to call upon them for their services, with the remark, "What
for you work, missus! You hab niggers enough to wait upon you!" You may
suppose how agreeable such remonstrances are to me.

When I remember, too, that here I see none of the worst features of this
system: that the slaves on this estate are not bought and sold, nor let
out to hire to other masters; that they are not cruelly starved or
barbarously beaten, and that members of one family are not parted from
each other for life, and sent to distant plantations in other
States,--all which liabilities (besides others, and far worse ones)
belong of right, or rather of wrong, to their condition as slaves, and
are commonly practiced throughout the southern half of this free
country,--I remain appalled at a state of things in which human beings
are considered fortunate who are _only_ condemned to dirt, ignorance,
unrequited labor, and, what seems to me worst of all, a dead level of
general degradation, which God and Nature, by endowing some above
others, have manifestly forbidden.

Do you remember your admiration of philanthropy because I blew the dirty
nose of a little vagabond in the street with my embroidered
handkerchief? I wish you could see me cleansing and washing and
poulticing the sick women and babies in the infirmary here; I think you
would admit that I have what Beatrice commends Benedict for, "an
excellent stomach."

God bless you, dear! I am not well; this slavish sunshine dries up my
vitality. I have hardly any time for writing, but shall find it to write
to you.

Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.

BUTLER'S ISLAND, January 20th, 1839.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

To you who have, besides "swimming in a gondola" (which many of the
vulgar do nowadays), paddled in a c