Nor are they destitute, as has been supposed, of any legal protection, coming between them and the possible cupidity and cruelty of the masters. The '_code noir_' of Louisiana is a curious collection of statutes, drawn partly from French and Spanish law and usage, and partly from the customs of the islands, and usages, which have grown out of the peculiar circumstances of Louisiana while a colony. It has the aspect, it must be admitted, of being formed rather for the advantage of the master, than for the servant, for it prescribes an unlimited homage and obedience to the latter. But at the same time, it defines crimes, which the master can commit in relation to the slave, and prescribes the mode of trial, and the kind and degree of punishment. It constitutes unnecessary correction, maiming, and murder, punishable offences in a master. It is very minute in prescribing the number of hours, which the master may lawfully exact to be employed in labour, and the number of hours, which he must allow his slave for meal-time and for rest. It prescribes the time and extent of his holidays. In short, it settles with minuteness and detail the whole circle of relations between master and slave, defining, and prescribing what the former may, and may not exact from the latter.
That the slave is, also, in the general circumstances of his condition, as happy as this relation will admit of his being, is an unquestionable fact. That he seldom performs as much labour, or performs it as well as a free man, says all upon the subject of the motives which freedom only can supply, that can be alleged. In all the better managed plantations, the mode of building the quarters is fixed. The arrangement of the little village has a fashion by which it is settled. Interest, if not humanity, has defined the amount of food and rest, necessary for their health; and there is, in a large and respectable plantation, as much precision in the rules, as much exactness in the times of going to sleep, awaking, going to labour, and resting before and after meals, as in a garrison under military discipline, or in a ship of war. A bell gives all the signals; every slave, at the assigned hour in the morning, is forthcoming to his labour, or his case is reported, either as one of idleness, obstinacy, or sickness, in which case he is sent to the hospital, and there is attended by a physician, who, for the most part, has a yearly salary for attending to all the sick of the plantation. The union of physical force, directed by one will, is now well understood to have a much greater effect upon the amount of labour, which a number of hands, so managed, can bring about, than the same force directed by as many wills as there are hands. Hence it happens that while one free man, circumstances being the same, will perform more labour than one slave, a hundred slaves will accomplish more on one plantation, than so many hired free men, acting at their own discretion. Hence, too, it is, that such a prodigious quantity of cotton and sugar is made here, in proportion to the number of labouring hands. All the processes of agriculture are managed by system. Everything goes straight forward. There is no pulling down to-day the scheme of yesterday, and the whole amount of force is directed by the teaching of experience to the best result. _Flint's Miss. Val. Art. Louisiana_, vol. i. p. 527.