"I suppose, then, you think slavery will always continue, Mr. Weston?" said Hubbard.
"Well, I am only a man, and cannot prophesy, but I think, probably not. Slavery is decreasing throughout the world. The slave trade is about being abolished on the coast of Africa. You Abolitionists are getting a good many off from our southern country, and our planters are setting a number of theirs free, and sending them to Africa. I know a gentleman in Georgia who liberated a number, and gave them the means to start in Liberia as free agents and men. He told me he saw them on board, and watched the ship as she disappeared from his sight. At last he could not detect the smallest trace of her, and then such a feeling of intense satisfaction occupied his breast as had been a stranger there until that time. 'Is it possible that they are gone, and I am no longer to be plagued with them? They are free, and I am free, too.' He could hardly give vent to his feelings of relief on the occasion."
"And are they such trouble to you, Arthur?" asked Abel.
"No, indeed," said Arthur, "not the least. My father treats them well, and they appear to be as well off as the working classes generally are. I see rules to regulate the conduct of the master and slave in Scripture, but I see no where the injunction to release them; nor do I find laid down the sin of holding them. The fact is, you northern people are full of your isms; you must start a new one every year. I hope they will not travel south, for I am tired of them. I should like to take Deacon and Mrs. White back home with me. Our servants would be afraid of a man who has worked sixteen hours a day half his lifetime."
"Deacon White is worth twenty thousand dollars," said Abel, "every cent of which he made mending and making common shoes."
