4 JULY 1846, Page 17

THE LIFE OF A NEGRO SLAVE.

DESCRIPTIONS of American slavery in the form of the autobiography of an American slave have already appeared before the world. The Life of Archy Moore was probably a fiction it Is Defoe ; though the novelist was rather to be traced in an occasional breadth, an effective contrivance, and a roundness of story, than in any disposition to exaggerate the sufferings of the slave. The Life of Frederick Douglas came forth as a pure bio- graphy ; and those who are sceptical may go and look at the man, for he travels the country as an itinerant lecturer : yet in despite of this verity there seemed to be as much of colour in Douglas as in Archy Moore. The original American edition of the reprint before rut was accompanied by vouchers as to the credibility of Charles Ball the runaway slave, and what we should think quite as needful, of those who undertake to narrate his career : but these and all other particulars of the story of the book are improperly omitted in this edition. It may be quite true that " the narrative itself contains sufficient internal evidence of its truth" ; but credentials are a necessary form, even when we know the person, and know that he is coming, much more when we are called upon to credit a narrative of this kind, when we know absolutely nothing of the man who lived or of the persons who took down his life—for it does not seem that Ball could write.

We agree, however, with the English editor, that internal evidence is in its favour. Some of the reflections and pious remarks may be inter- polations • but there is less appearance of any artistical attempts than in the case Of Archy Moore, who was the son of a gentleman, and could not be distinguished from a White man, or even with Douglas, who hid ac- quired an education by accident and perseverance. Charles Ball is a Nigger, and nothing but a Nigger ; who passed the greater portion of his slavery in field-labour, who seems to have had a very servile idea of the greatness of Southern " gentlemen," and whose highest aspirations were "a belly-full " and to avoid a flogging. There is either a natural or a dramatic consistency about him too; his personal sufferings seem so much things of course, so adapted to the condition of slavery, that they do not excite a sympathy proportioned to their intensity : for he was once in very early life sold from his wife and family ; kidnapped after he had escaped a first time from slavery; and had a second with and family carried off. There are some incidents, however, of consider- able power and interest. Such is the story of the abduction and death of a beautiful young White girl by two Negroes, with their detec- tion and punishment ; the vagueness in which the worst horrors are left being a happy result of ignorance or art. The first escape of Ball, though monotonous, has an interest from its picture of privation and

perseverance ; his pushing on by night, hiding by day, living upon what be stole in the fields, and with no other guide than the stars—for in those days the Abolitionists bad not organized means of comparatively easy escape. His account of what he saw during the war of 1812 furnishes a good enough sketch of the buccaneering manner in which it was carried on, if the statements can be relied upon, but we suspect interpolation or falsification. There is no doubt that the composition throughout is the work of those who " took down" Ball's narrative.

No new general impression is conveyed by The Life of a Negro Slave. Harder work and harder living, as we proceed more to the South—public opinion operating against a man who is supposed to starve Or ill use his slaves beyond what custom warrants—and a dread of slave suicide in the mind of the planter, as he not only loses his property but becomes degraded in the estimation of his district—are not new conclu- sions. We do not remember to have seen that a skilful eye can tell the keep of a Negro by his appearance, not merely as regards the quantity of food but its quality, Blackey thriving best with a mixture of meat.

Here is a sad yet not unpleasing picture of the old dominion and Maryland. How are the mighty fallen !

"In all the lower parts of Maryland and Virginia, the traveller will see large old family mansions, of neglected appearance, standing in the midst of vast fields of many hundred acres, the rotten fences of which have been replaced by a wattled work composed of short cedar stakes, the intervals filled up by branches of cedar worked into the stakes horizontally, in the manner of a basket. Many of these fields, having been entirely abandoned, are overgrown with cedars, which spring up almost as soon as a field ceases to be ploughed; in many places the en- closed fields are only partially cultivated, all the bills and poorest parts being given up to the cedars and ehinquopia bushes. These estates, the seats of families that were once powerful, wealthy, and proud, are destitute even of a barn; the house and offices have fallen to decay; and the remains are occupied by the impoverished proprietor with half-a-dozen or ten slaves, the remnant of two or three hundred who toiled upon the grounds in former days. The residue of the stock has been dispersed by the marriage of the daughters, the emigration of the sons, or by sale to the Southern traders, to support the house from year to year. The sedge-grass takes possession of the worn-out fields, till supplanted; by the e.hinquora and the cedar. This grass grows in thick-set branches or stools, and no land is too poor for it. It rises to the height of two or three feet, and grows in i many places in great profusion; is utterly worthless either for hay or pasturage, but affords shelter to numerous rabbits and countless flocks of partridges, and, at a short distance, has a beautiful appearance as its elastic blue tops wave in the breeze.

"In Maryland and Virgin* although the slaves are treated with so much rigour, and often with cruelty, I have seen instances of the greatest tenderness of feeling on the part of their owners. My last master in Maryland, who sold me to the Georgians, was an unfeeling man; but I cannot even now say that either of the other two used me worse than they had a moral right to do, regarding me merely as an article of property, and not entitled to any rights as a man, political or civil. My mistresses in Maryland were good women; and I believe there are no better-hearted women in the world than the ladies of the ancient families in old Virginia and Maryland. The pride in being the proprietors of so many human beings, who have belonged to the family for several generations, in many in- stances borders on affection for them. In most cases the sufferings of the slaves in lower Virginia arise from the poverty and distress of the owners. The family must first be supported, and the slaves must be content with the surplus; and this, on a poor, old, worn-out tobacco plantation, is often wholly inadequate to their comfortable sustenance. There, in many places,nothing is allowed to the Po9r Negro but his peck of corn per week, without the sauce of a salt herring, or even a little salt itself. The state of the owners is not much more enviable."