their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their
oppressors, or, at length, by His exterminating thunder, manifest
His attention to the things of this world, and that they are not
left to the guidance of a blind fatality.[97]

Jefferson, however, seemed to have a kind feeling for the bondmen, as
these extracts will show.

I observe in your letter ... that the profits of the whole estate
(of Monticello) would be no more than the hire of the few negroes
hired out would amount to. Would it be better to hire more where
good masters could be got? Would it be better to hire plantations
and all, if proper assurance can be provided for the good usage,
of everything?[98]

I am miserable till I shall owe not a shilling. The moment that
shall be the case, I shall feel myself at liberty to do something
for the comfort of the slaves.[99]

The check on the tenants against abusing my slaves was, by the
former lease, that I might discontinue it on a reference to
arbitrators. Would it not be well to retain an optional right to
sue them for ill-usage of the slaves or to discontinue it by
arbitration, whichever you should choose at the time?[100]

As far as I can judge from the experiments which have been made
to give liberty to, or rather, to abandon persons whose habits
have been formed in slavery is like abandoning children.[101]

I am decided on my final return to America to try this
experiment. I shall endeavor to import as many Germans as I have
grown slaves. I will settle them and my slaves, on farms of fifty
acres each, intermingled, and place all on the footing of the
Metayers (Medietaini) of Europe. Their children shall be brought
up, as others are, in habits of property and foresight, and I
have no doubt but that they will be good citizens. Some of their
fathers will be so; others I suppose will need government. With
these all that can be done is to oblige them to labor as the
laboring poor of Europe do, and to apply to their comfortable
subsistence the produce of their labor, retaining such a moderate
portion of it as may be a just equivalent for the use of the
lands they labor, and the stocks and other necessary
advances.[102]

The inculcation (in your book) on the master of the moral duties
which he owes to the slave, in r