ttle thatched cottages, I
felt that the condition of even the meanest and most ignorant among them
was vastly superior to the condition of the most favored slaves in America.
They labored hard; but they were not ordered out to toil while the stars
were in the sky, and driven and slashed by an overseer, through heat and
cold, till the stars shone out again. Their homes were very humble; but
they were protected by law. No insolent patrols could come, in the dead of
night, and flog them at their pleasure. The father, when he closed his
cottage door, felt safe with his family around him. No master or overseer
could come and take from him his wife, or his daughter. They must separate
to earn their living; but the parents knew where their children were going,
and could communicate with them by letters. The relations of husband and
wife, parent and child, were too sacred for the richest noble in the land
to violate with impunity. Much was being done to enlighten these poor
people. Schools were established among them, and benevolent societies were
active in efforts to ameliorate their condition. There was no law
forbidding them to learn to read and write; and if they helped each other
in spelling out the Bible, they were in no danger of thirty-nine lashes, as
was the case with myself and poor, pious, old uncle Fred. I repeat that the
most ignorant and the most destitute of these peasants was a thousand fold
better off than the most pampered American slave.

I do not deny that the poor are oppressed in Europe. I am not disposed to
paint their condition so rose-colored as the Hon. Miss Murray paints the
condition of the slaves in the United States. A small portion of _my_
experience would enable her to read her own pages with anointed eyes. If
she were to lay aside her title, and, instead of visiting among the
fashionable, become domesticated, as a poor governess, on some plantation
in Louisiana or Alabama, she would see and hear things that would make her
tell quite a different story.

My visit to England is a memorable event in my life, from the fact of my
having there received strong religious impressions. The contemptuous manner
in which the communion had been administered to colored people, in my
native place; the church membership of Dr. Flint, and others like him; and
the buying and selling of slaves, by professed ministers of the gospel, had
given me a prejudice against the Episcopal church. The whole service seemed
to me