Pursuing my perambulations, I came to the slave and general cotton place of vendue, to the left of the General Post-office, which building is a very substantial edifice of stone. Here a dozen or twenty auctioneers were loudly holding forth to the assembled crowds, and cracking up their wares in New York style. The most indescribable scene of bustle and confusion prevailed, the whole street being covered with open bales and boxes of goods. In one part of the street was a slave warehouse, and advertisements were placarded outside of the particulars of the various lots to be offered for competition, and now on view. As the privilege of viewing in this instance was confined to those who possessed tickets, I did not apply for one, as I knew that the wish would be attributed to curiosity, and possibly a worse construction be put upon it, through my being a stranger in the place.
Passing onwards through the assembled throng, I got into a more secluded part of the city, and came upon a large burial-ground, in which many of the monuments erected to the memory of the dead were of a very expensive description. One in particular attracted my notice; this, on inquiry of a gentlemanly-looking man, who, like myself, was inclined to "meditate among the tombs," I ascertained had been erected by the relatives of a planter, who had resided in an adjoining state, but who had several cotton plantations within ten miles of Charleston; these he occasionally visited, but in general confided to the care of an overseer, who lived with his family on one of them. The season anterior to his last visit had been a very unpropitious one, and he was much dissatisfied with the management. To prevent a recurrence of this loss, and, under the strong impression that the hands were not worked as they should be, he resolved to inspect the plantations himself, and administer some wholesome discipline in _propriâ personâ;_ for this purpose, he visited one of the plantations, intending afterwards to proceed to the others in rotation. It so happened that he arrived when not expected; and, finding his overseer absent, and many of the hands not as closely engaged as he wished, he became violently enraged. Summoning the overseer, he ordered all hands in front of the house to witness a punishment, and causing eight or ten of those whom he pointed out to be tied up at once and well whipped, stood by the while in uncontrollable anger to give directions. In the midst of the scene, and while urging greater severity, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, which was of such a nature, that it at once closed his career, and he died instantaneously. Directly the man fell, the negroes collected round him and uttered cries and lamentations, and the poor wretch who was at the moment the victim of his brutality, on being untied, which was immediately done, joined in it. Notwithstanding that my companion had a decided leaning towards the extinction of slavery, (although he started various objections to its abolition,) I was quite inclined to believe his relation, having, when in Florida, met with a somewhat similar instance of the devotedness of the negro race, in an old woman who was bitterly bewailing the loss of her deceased mistress. The latter was an English lady, but not over kind to her, and reflected no credit on her countrywomen. The poor creature in touching strains enlarged upon her beauty and accomplishments, but when I questioned her as to her treatment of the negroes in general belonging to the estates, would say little on the subject, and shook her head; in it was plain that, like most females living in the south, she was a pampered worldling, entirely engrossed by principles of self-interest, and little regarding the welfare of her dependents, if not, as I have before observed, very severe towards them. She died prematurely, from the effects of one of those virulent fevers, that in southern latitudes are so often fatal to the inhabitants, especially to those who have been nurtured in Europe. Her encoffined remains were shipped on board a vessel, to be conveyed to England for burial, in accordance with her expressed wish. When the poor creature came to that part of her piteous tale, when, as she called her, her "beautiful angel of a mistress" was put in the coffin, and the estate hands were called in to take a last view of her (a custom in vogue there sometimes), she was overpowered with grief, and her utterance was so choked, that she could scarcely proceed.