mpressive lesson he was giving to his wife. _He_ wanted me to be _a
slave;_ I had already voted against that on the home plantation of Col.
Lloyd. That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination
which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more
resolute in seeking intelligence. In learning to read, therefore, I am
not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the opposition of my master,
as to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress. I acknowledge the
benefit rendered me by the one, and by the other; believing, that but
for my mistress, I might have grown up in ignorance.

I had resided but a short time in Baltimore, before I observed a marked
difference in the manner of treating slaves, generally, from which I had
witnessed in that isolated and out-of-the-way part of the country where
I began life. A city slave is almost a free citizen, in Baltimore,
compared with a slave on Col. Lloyd's plantation. He is much better fed
and clothed, is less dejected in his appearance, and enjoys privileges
altogether unknown to the whip-driven slave on the plantation.
Slavery dislikes a dense population, in which there is a majority of
non-slaveholders. The general sense of decency that must pervade such a
population, does much to check and prevent those outbreaks of atrocious
cruelty, and those dark crimes without a name, almost openly perpetrated
on the plantation. He is a desperate slaveholder who will shock
the humanity of his non-slaveholding neighbors, by the cries of the
lacerated slaves; and very few in the city are willing to incur the
odium of being cruel masters. I found, in Baltimore, that no man was
more odious to the white, as well as to the colored people, than he, who
had the reputation of starving his slaves. Work them, flog them, if need
be, but don't starve them. These are, however, some painful exceptions
to this rule. While it is quite true that most of the slaveholders in
Baltimore feed and clothe their slaves well, there are others who keep
up their country cruelties in the city.

An instance of this sort is furnished in the case of a family{116}
who lived directly opposite to our house, and were named Hamilton. Mrs.
Hamilton owned two slaves. Their names were Henrietta and Mary. They had
always been house slaves. One was aged about twenty-two, and the other
about fourteen. They were a fragile couple by nature, and the treatment
they received was enough to break down the