uld convert the master
himself into an overseer. It would occasion great loss of time and
labor, leaving the overseer in fetters, and without the necessary power
to secure obedience to his orders. A privilege so dangerous as that of
appeal, is, therefore, strictly prohibited; and any one exercising it,
runs a fearful hazard. Nevertheless, when a slave has nerve enough
to exercise it, and boldly approaches his master, with a well-founded
complaint against an overseer, though he may be repulsed, and may even
have that of which he complains repeated at the time, and, though he may
be beaten by his master, as well as by the overseer, for his temerity,
in the end the{65} policy of complaining is, generally, vindicated by
the relaxed rigor of the overseer's treatment. The latter becomes more
careful, and less disposed to use the lash upon such slaves thereafter.
It is with this final result in view, rather than with any expectation
of immediate good, that the outraged slave is induced to meet his master
with a complaint. The overseer very naturally dislikes to have the
ear of the master disturbed by complaints; and, either upon this
consideration, or upon advice and warning privately given him by
his employers, he generally modifies the rigor of his rule, after an
outbreak of the kind to which I have been referring.

Howsoever the slaveholder may allow himself to act toward his slave,
and, whatever cruelty he may deem it wise, for example's sake, or for
the gratification of his humor, to inflict, he cannot, in the absence
of all provocation, look with pleasure upon the bleeding wounds of a
defenseless slave-woman. When he drives her from his presence without
redress, or the hope of redress, he acts, generally, from motives of
policy, rather than from a hardened nature, or from innate brutality.
Yet, let but his own temper be stirred, his own passions get loose, and
the slave-owner will go _far beyond_ the overseer in cruelty. He will
convince the slave that his wrath is far more terrible and boundless,
and vastly more to be dreaded, than that of the underling overseer. What
may have been mechanically and heartlessly done by the overseer, is now
done with a will. The man who now wields the lash is irresponsible.
He may, if he pleases, cripple or kill, without fear of consequences;
except in so far as it may concern profit or loss. To a man of
violent temper--as my old master was--this was but a very slender and
inefficient res