e gentleman, indeed, was himself one of
the numerous tribe of regular whiskey drinkers, and was rarely
capable of any work; but he had a family of twelve children, who,
with their skeleton mother, worked much harder than I ever saw
negroes do. They were, accordingly, much less elegant and much
less poor than the heiress; yet they lived with no appearance of
comfort, and with, I believe, nothing beyond the necessaries of
life. One proof of this was, that the worthless father would not
suffer them to raise, even by their own labour, any garden
vegetables, and they lived upon their fat pork, salt fish, and
corn bread, summer and winter, without variation. This, I found,
was frequently the case among the farmers. The luxury of whiskey
is more appreciated by the men than all the green delicacies from
the garden, and if all the ready money goes for that and their
darling chewing tobacco, none can be spent by the wife for garden
seeds; and as far as my observation extended, I never saw any
American _menage_ where the toast and no toast question, would
have been decided in favour of the lady.

There are some small farmers who hold their lands as tenants, but
these are by no means numerous: they do not pay their rent in
money, but by making over a third of the produce to the owner; a
mode of paying rent, considerably more advantageous to the tenant
than the landlord; but the difficulty of obtaining _money_ in
payment, excepting for mere retail articles, is very great in all
American transactions. "I can pay in pro-_duce_," is the offer
which I was assured is constantly made on all occasions, and if
rejected, "Then I guess we can't deal," is the usual rejoinder.
This statement does not, of course, include the great merchants
of great cities, but refers to the mass of the people scattered
over the country; it has, indeed, been my object, in speaking of
the customs of the people, to give an idea of what they are
_generally_.

The effect produced upon English people by the sight of slavery
in every direction is very new, and not very agreeable, and it is
not the less painfully felt from hearing upon every breeze the
mocking words, "All men are born free and equal." One must be in
the heart of American slavery, fully to appreciate that
wonderfully fine passage in Moore's Epistle to Lord Viscount
Forbes, which describes perhaps more faithfully, as well as more
powerfully, the political state of America, than any thing that