shame and grief of heart I say it, by their unpaid labour I live--their
nakedness clothes me, and their heavy toil maintains me in luxurious
idleness. Surely the least I can do is to hear these, my most injured
benefactors; and, indeed, so intense in me is the sense of the injury they
receive from me and mine, that I should scarce dare refuse them the very
clothes from my back, or food from my plate, if they asked me for it. In
taking my daily walk round the banks yesterday, I found that I was walking
over violet roots. The season is too little advanced for them to be in
bloom, and I could not find out whether they were the fragrant violet or
not.

Mr. ---- has been much gratified to-day by the arrival of Mr. K----, who,
with his father, for nineteen years was the sole manager of these
estates, and discharged his laborious task with great ability and
fidelity towards his employers. How far he understood his duties to the
slaves, or whether indeed an overseer can, in the nature of things,
acknowledge any duty to them, is another question. He is a remarkable man
and is much respected for his integrity and honourable dealing by
everybody here. His activity and energy are wonderful, and the mere fact
of his having charge of for nineteen years, and personally governing,
without any assistance whatever, seven hundred people scattered over
three large tracts of land, at a considerable distance from each other,
certainly bespeaks efficiency and energy of a very uncommon order. The
character I had heard of him from Mr. ---- had excited a great deal of
interest in me, and I was very glad of this opportunity of seeing a man
who, for so many years, had been sovereign over the poor people here. I
met him walking on the banks with Mr. ----, as I returned from my own
ramble, during which nothing occurred or appeared to interest me--except,
by the by, my unexpectedly coming quite close to one of those magnificent
scarlet birds which abound here, and which dart across your path, like a