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BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

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Fifth Edition.

THE

WHITE SLAVE:

OR,

MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE.

CHAPTER I.

who would know what evils man can inflict upon his fellow

limit of human endurance, and with what bitter anguish and indignant hate the heart may swell, and yet not burst,-peruse these Memoirs !

Mine are no silken sorrows, nor sentimental sufferings, but that stern reality of actual woe, the story of which may, perhaps, touch even some of those, who are every day themselves the authors of misery the same as I endured. For however the practice of tyranny may have deadened every better emotion, and the prejudices of education and interest may have hardened the heart, humanity will still extort an involuntary tribute; and men will grow uneasy at hearing of those deeds, of which the doing does not cost them a moment's inquietude.

Should I accomplish no more than this-should I be able, through the triple steel with which the love of money and the lust of domination has encircled it, to reach one bosom-let the story of my wrongs summon up, in the mind of a single oppressor, the dark and dreaded images of his own misdeeds, and teach his conscience how to torture him with the picture of himself, and I shall be content. Next to the tears and the exultations of the emancipated, the remorse of tyrants is the choicest offering upon the altar of liberty!

But perhaps something more may be possible,-not likely-but to be imagined—and it may be, even faintly to be hoped. Perhaps within some youthful breast, in which the evil spirits of avarice and tyranny have as yet failed to gain unlimited control, I may be able to

B

rekindle the smothered and expiring embers of humanity. Spite of habits and prejudices inculcated and fostered from his earliest childhood--spite of the enticements of wealth and political distinction, and the still stronger enticements of indolence and ease-spite of the pratings of hollow-hearted priests-spite of the arguments of timeserving sophists-spite of the hesitation and terrors of the weakspirited and wavering-in spite of evil precept and evil example, he dares that generous and heroic youth!-to cherish and avow the feelings of a man.

Another Saul among the prophets, he prophesies terrible things in the ear of insolent and luxurious tyranny; in the midst of tyrants, he dares to preach the good tidings of liberty; in the very school of oppression, he stands boldly forth the advocate of human rights!

He breaks down the ramparts of prejudice; he dissipates the illusions of avarice and pride; he repeals the enactments which, though wanting every feature of justice, have sacrilegiously usurped the sacred form of law! He snatches the whip from the hand of the master; he breaks for ever the fetter of the slave!

In place of reluctant toil, drudging for another, he brings in smiling industry to labour for herself! All nature seems to exult in the change! The earth, no longer made barren by the tears and the blood of her children, pours forth her treasures with redoubled liberality. Existence ceases to be torture; and to live is no longer, to millions, the certainty of being miserable.

Chosen Instrument of Mercy! Illustrious Deliverer! come quickly!

Come!

Come!-lest, if thy coming be delayed, there come in thy place he who will be at once DELIVERER and AVENGER!

CHAPTER II.

THE County in which I was born was then, and for aught I know may still be, one of the richest and most populous in Eastern Virginia. My father, Colonel Charles Moore, was the head of one of the most considerable and influential families in that part of the country; and family, however little weight it may have in other parts of America, at the time I was born, was a thing of no slight consequence in Lower Virginia. Nature and education had combined to qualify Colonel Moore to fill with credit the station in which his birth had placed him. He was a finished aristocrat; and such he showed himself in every word, look, and action. There was in his bearing a conscious

superiority which few could resist, softened, and rendered even agreeable by a gentleness and suavity, which flattered, pleased, and captivated. In fact, he was familiarly spoken of among his friends and neighbours as the faultless pattern of a true Virginian gentleman-an encomium by which they supposed themselves to convey, in the most emphatic manner, the highest possible praise.

When the war of the American revolution broke out, Colonel Moore was a very young man. By birth and education he belonged, as I have said, to the aristocratic party, which being aristocratic, was, of course, conservative. But the impulses of youth and patriotism were too strong to be resisted. He espoused with zeal the cause of liberty; and by his political activity and influence, contributed not a little to its success.

Of liberty, indeed, he was always a warm and energetic admirer. Among my earliest recollections of him, is the earnestness with which, among his friends and guests, he used to vindicate the cause of the French revolution, then going on. Of that revolution, throughout its whole progress, he was a most eloquent advocate and apologist; and though I understood little or nothing of what he said, the spirit and eloquence with which he spoke could not fail to affect me. The rights of man, and the rights of human nature, were phrases which, although at that time I was quite unconscious of their meaning, I heard so often repeated, that they made an indelible impression upon my memory, and, in after years, frequently recurred to my recollection.

But Colonel Moore was not a mere talker; he had the credit of acting up to his principles, and was universally regarded as a man of the greatest good-nature, honour, and uprightness. Several promising young men, who afterwards rose to eminence, were indebted for their first start in life to his patronage and assistance. He settled half the differences in the county, and never seemed so well pleased as when, by preventing a lawsuit or a duel, he hindered an accidental and perhaps trifling dispute from degenerating into a bitter, if not a fatal quarrel. The tenderness of his heart, his ready, active benevolence, and his sympathy with misfortune, were traits in his character spoken of by everybody.

Had I been allowed to choose my own paternity, could I possibly have selected a more desirable father? But by the laws and customs of Virginia, it is not the father, but the mother, whose rank and condition determine that of the child; and, alas! my mother was a concubine and a slave!

Yet those who beheld her for the first time would hardly have imagined, or would willingly have forgotten, that she was connected with an ignoble and degraded race. Humble as her station might be,