all tied up in a great bundle, and destined for some family still poorer than they had been.

The captain then drove to the lodgings he had taken, and which he had directed to be put in thorough order. He led Amelia up stairs, who knew not whither she was going. He brought her into a handsome room, and seated her in a chair.

“This, my dear," said he, "is your home. I hope you will let me now and then come and see you

in it."

Amelia turned pale, and could not speak. At length a flood of tears came to her relief, and she suddenly threw herself at her uncle's feet, and poured out thanks and blessings in a broken voice.

He raised her, and kindly kissing her and her children, slipped a purse of gold into her hand, and hurried down stairs.

He next went to the hospital, and found Mr. Bland sitting up in bed, and taking some food with apparent pleasure. He sat down by him.

"God bless you, sir!" said Bland, "I see now it is all a reality, and not a dream. Your figure has been haunting me all night, and I have scarcely been able to satisfy myself whether I had really seen and spoken to you, or whether it were a fit of delirium. Yet my spirits have been lightened, and I have now been eating with a relish I have not experienced for many days past. But may I ask, how is my poor Amelia, and my little ones ?"

"They are well and happy, my good friend," said the captain; "and I hope you will soon be so along with them."

The medical gentleman came up, and felt his patient's pulse.

"You are a skilful doctor, indeed, sir," said he to Captain Cornish; " you have cured the poor man of his fever. His pulse is as calm as my own.

The captain consulted him about the safety of re

moving him; and he said he thought there would be no hazard in the removal that very day. The captain awaited the arrival of the physician, who confirmed that opinion. A sedan chair was procured, and full directions being obtained for his future treatment, with the physician's promise to look after him, the captain walked before the chair to the new lodgings. On the knock at the door, Amelia looked out of the window, and seeing the chair, ran down, and met her uncle and husband in the passage. The poor man, not knowing where he was, and gazing wildly around him, was carried up stairs, and placed upon a good bed, while his wife and children assembled round it. A glass of wine restored him to his recollection, when a most tender scene ensued, which the uncle closed as soon as he could, for fear of too much agitating the yet feeble organs of the sick

man.

By Amelia's constant attention, assisted by proper help, Mr. Bland shortly recovered; and the whole family lost their sickly, emaciated appearance, and be came healthy and happy. The kind uncle was never long absent from them, and was always received with looks of pleasure and gratitude that penetrated his very soul. He obtained for Mr. Bland a good engage ment in the exercise of his profession, and took Amelia and her children into his special care. As to his other nieces, though he did not entirely break off his connection with them, but, on the contrary, showed them occasional marks of the kindness of a relation, yet he could never look upon them with true cordiality. And as they had so well kept their promise to their father of never treating Amelia as a sister, while in her afflicted state, he took care not to tempt them to break it, now she was in a favoured and prosperous condition.

411

MASTER AND SLAVE.

Master. Now, villain! what have you to say for this second attempt to run away ? Is there any punish

ment that you do not deserve ?

Slave. I well know that nothing I can say will avail. I submit to my fate.

M. But are you not a base fellow, a hardened and ungrateful rascal ?

S. I am a slave. That is answer enough. M. I am not content with that answer. I thought I discerned in you some tokens of a mind superior to your condition. I treated you accordingly. You have been comfortably fed and lodged, not overworked, and attended with the most humane care when you were sick. And is this the return?

S. Since you condescend to talk with me as man to man, I will reply. What have you done-what can you do for me, that will compensate for the liberty which you have taken away ?

M. I did not take it away. You were a slave when I fairly purchased you.

S. Did I give my consent to the purchase?

M. You had no consent to give. You had already lost the right of disposing of yourself.

S. I had lost the power; but how the right? I was treacherously kidnapped in my own country when following an honest occupation. I was put in chains, sold to one of your countrymen, carried by force on board his ship, brought hither and exposed to sale like a beast in the market, where you bought me.

What

step in all this progress of violence and injustice can give a right? Was it in the villain who stole me, in the slave-merchant who tempted him to do so, or in you who encouraged the slave-merchant to bring his cargo of human cattle to cultivate your lands?

M. It is in the order of providence that one man should become subservient to another. It ever has been so, and ever will be. I found the custom, and did not make it.

S. You cannot but be sensible that the robber who puts a pistol to your breast may make just the same plea. Providence gives him a power over your life and property; it gave my enemies a power over my liberty. But it has also given me legs to escape with; and what should prevent me from using them? Nay, what should restrain me from retaliating the wrongs I have suffered, if a favourable occasion should offer?

M. Gratitude, I repeat,-gratitude! Have I not endeavoured ever since I possessed you to alleviate your misfortunes by kind treatment, and does that confer no obligation? Consider how much worse your condition might have been under another master?

S. You have done nothing for me more than for your working cattle. Are they not well fed and tended? do you work them harder than your slaves? is not the rule of treating both, only your own advantage? You treat both your men and beast slaves better than some of your neighbours, because you are more prudent and wealthy than they.

M. You might add, more humane too.

S. Humane! Does it deserve that appellation to keep your fellow-men in forced subjection, deprived of all exercise of their free-will, liable to all the injuries that your own caprice, or the brutality of your overseers, may heap on them, and devoted, soul and body, only to your pleasure and emolument ? Can gratitude take place from creatures in such a state, towards the tyrant who holds them in it? Look at these limbsare they not those of a man? Think that I have the spirit of a man, too.

M. But it was my intention not only to make your life tolerably comfortable at present, but to provide for old age.

you

in your

S. Alas! is a life like mine, torn from country, friends, and all I held dear, and compelled to toil under the burning sun for a master, worth thinking about for old age ? No-the sooner it ends, the sooner I shall obtain that relief for which my soul pants.

M. Is it impossible, then, to hold you by any ties but those of constraint and severity ?

S. It is impossible to make one who has felt the value of freedom, acquiesce in being a slave.

M. Suppose I were to restore you to your libertywould you reckon that a favour?

S. The greatest; for although it would only be undoing a wrong, I know too well how few among mankind are capable of sacrificing interest to justice, not to prize the exertion when it is made

M. I do it, then ;-be free.

S. Now I am indeed your servant, though not your slave. And as the first return I can make for your kindness, I will tell you freely the condition in which you live. You are surrounded with implacable foes, who long for a safe opportunity to revenge upon you and the other planters all the miseries they have endured. The more generous their natures, the more indignant they feel against that cruel injustice which has dragged them hither, and doomed them to perpetual servitude. You can rely on no kindness on your part to soften the obduracy of their resentment. You have reduced them to the state of brute beasts, and if they have not the stupidity of beasts of burden, they must have the ferocity of beasts of prey. Superior force alone can give you security. As soon as that fails, you are at the mercy of the merciless. Such is the social bond between master and slave.