HomeShopHistoryPublishingGenealogy
America's Freedom Documents
American History Texts
State and Local History

 

Bristol. On arriving there, both Mr. and Miss Estlin received us as cordially as did our first good Quaker friends in Pennsylvania. It grieves me much to have to mention that he is no more. Everyone who knew him can truthfully say

"Peace to the memory of a man of worth, A man of letters, and of manners too! Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears When gay Good-nature dresses her in smiles."

It was principally through the extreme kindness of Mr. Estlin, the Right Hon. Lady Noel Byron, Miss Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Reid, Miss Sturch, and a few other good friends, that my wife and myself were able to spend a short time at a school in this country, to acquire a little of that education which we were so shamefully deprived of while in the house of bondage. The school is under the supervision of the Misses Lushington, D.C.L. During our stay at the school we received the greatest attention from every one; and I am particularly indebted to Thomas Wilson, Esq., of Bradmore House, Chiswick, (who was then the master,) for the deep interest he took in trying to get me on in my studies. We shall ever fondly and gratefully cherish the memory of our endeared and departed friend, Mr. Estlin. We, as well as the Anti-Slavery cause, lost a good friend in him. However, if departed spirits in Heaven are conscious of the wickedness of this world, and are allowed to speak, he will never fail to plead in the presence of the angelic host, and before the great and just Judge, for downtrodden and outraged humanity.

"Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone; The better part of thee is with us still; Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown, And only freer wrestles with the ill.

"Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die; Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy hope could hardly fly.

"And often, from that other world, on this Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, And clothe the Right with lustre more divine.

"Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning, too; Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, Then leap to thread the free unfathomed blue."

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

In the preceding pages I have not dwelt upon the great barbarities which are practised upon the slaves; because I wish to present the system in its mildest form, and to show that the "tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." But I do now, however, most solemnly declare, that a very large majority of the American slaves are over-worked, under-fed, and frequently unmercifully flogged.

I have often seen slaves tortured in every conceivable manner. I have seen him hunted down and torn by bloodhounds. I have seen them shamefully beaten, and branded with hot irons. I have seen them hunted, and even burned alive at the stake, frequently for offences that would be applauded if committed by white persons for similar purposes.

In short, it is well known in England, if not all over the world, that the Americans, as a people, are notoriously mean and cruel towards all coloured persons, whether they are bond or free.

"Oh, tyrant, thou who sleepest On a volcano, from whose pent-up wrath, Already some red flashes bursting up, Beware!"