With me it is seldom used, for
it is not required; and if you were captain of a man-of-war, I should
answer you as I did Captain C----; to wit--I question much whether my
noisy whip is half so mischievous as your silent _cat_."

The sugar-mills, stables of mules, boilers, coolers, &c., were all
examined, and the party returned to the plantation-house.

"Well, captain, now you have witnessed what is termed slavery, what is
your opinion? Are your philanthropists justified in their invectives
against us?"

"First assure me that all other plantations are as well regulated as
your own," replied Mr Berecroft.

"If not, they soon will be: it is to the interest of all the planters
that they should; and by that, like all the rest of the world, they will
be guided."

"But still there have been great acts of cruelty committed; quite enough
to prepossess us against you as a body."

"I grant that such has been the case, and may occasionally be so now;
but do not the newspapers of England teem with acts of barbarity? Men
are the same everywhere. But, sir, it is the misfortune of this world,
that we never know _when to stop_. The abolition of the slave-trade was
an act of humanity, worthy of a country acting upon an extended scale
like England; but your philanthropists, not content with relieving the
blacks, look forward to the extermination of their own countrymen, the
whites--who, upon the faith and promise of the nation, were induced to
embark their capital in these islands."

"Doubtless they wish to abolish slavery altogether," replied Berecroft.

"They must be content with having abolished the horrors of it, sir,"
continued the planter. "At a time when the mart was open, and you could
purchase another slave to replace the one that had died from
ill-treatment, or disease, the life of a slave was not of such
importance to his proprietor as it is now. Moreover, the slaves imported
were adults, who had been once free; and, torn as they were from their
natural soil and homes, where they slept in idleness throughout the day,
they were naturally morose and obstinate, sulky, and unwilling to work.
This occasioned severe punishment; and the hearts of their masters being
indurated by habit, it often led to acts of barbarity. But slavery,
since the abolition, has assumed a milder form--it is a species of
_bond_ slavery. There are few slaves in existence who have not
been born upon the estates, and we consider that they are more
l