Note 28 — AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE.

On the ensuing day, having persevered in endeavours to secure the captives, the son of this landlord (to whom I presume manacles, hand-cuffs, iron man-fetters, hopples &c. are as familiar as steel-traps and snares to the hunter of the animals which yield fur,) expressed his sympathy for the loss of the purchaser of the mulatto man, (who still remained in his chains,) should he be set at liberty. I asked him whether he considered it worse for the trader to lose a few hundred dollars in money, than for the mulatto man to be transported to a strange country, and be deprived of his liberty for life. To which he replied, after a short pause, that he did not know as there was much difference! I assured him, that if he did not, I was sorry for him. This illustrates the invincible force of morbid education and of habit.