To strike a slave was as common as to strike a horse--then the punishments were inflicted so unjustly, in innumerable instances, that the poor victims knew no more why they were punished than the dead in their graves.

The master would be a little ill--he had taken a cold, perhaps, and felt irritable--something were wrong--his passion was up, and away went some poor fellow to the whipping post.

The slightest offence at such a moment, though it might have passed unnoticed at another time, would meet with the severest punishment.

He said he himself had more than once ordered his slaves to be flogged in a passion, and after he became cool he would have given guineas not to have done it.

Many a night had he been kept awake in thinking of some poor fellow whom he had shut up in the dungeon, and had rejoiced when daylight came.