step they take towards intelligence and enlightenment lessens the probability of their acquiescing in their condition.  Their condition is not to be changed—­ergo, they had better not learn to read; a very succinct and satisfactory argument as far as it goes, no doubt, and one to which I had not a word to reply, at any rate, to Mr. O——­, as I did not feel called upon to discuss the abstract justice or equity of the matter with him; indeed he, to a certain degree, gave up that part of the position, starting with ‘I don’t say whether it’s right or wrong;’ and in all conversations that I have had with the southerners upon these subjects, whether out of civility to what may be supposed to be an Englishwoman’s prejudices, or a forlorn respect to their own convictions, the question of the fundamental wrong of slavery is generally admitted, or at any rate certainly never denied.  That part of the subject is summarily dismissed, and all its other aspects vindicated, excused, and even lauded, with untiring eloquence.  Of course, of the abstract question I could judge before I came here, but I confess I had not the remotest idea how absolutely my observation of every detail of the system, as a practical iniquity, would go to confirm my opinion of its abomination.  Mr. O——­ went on to condemn and utterly denounce all the preaching and teaching and moral instruction upon religious subjects, which people in the south, pressed upon by northern opinion, are endeavouring to give their slaves.  The kinder and the more cowardly masters are anxious to evade the charge of keeping their negroes in brutish ignorance, and so they crumble what they suppose and hope may prove a little harmless, religious enlightenment, which, mixed up with much religious authority on the subject of submission and fidelity to masters, they trust their slaves may swallow without its doing them any harm—­i.e., that they may be better Christians and better slaves—­and so, indeed, no doubt they are; but it is a very dangerous experiment, and from Mr. O——­’s point of view I quite agree with him.  The letting out of water, or the letting in of light, in infinitesimal quantities, is not always easy.  The half-wicked of the earth are the leaks through which wickedness is eventually swamped; compromises forerun absolute surrender in most matters, and fools and cowards are, in such cases, the instruments of Providence for their own defeat.  Mr. O——­ stated unequivocally his opinion that free labour would be more profitable on the plantations than the work of slaves, which, being compulsory, was of the worst possible quality and the smallest possible quantity; then the charge of them before and after they are able to work is onerous, the cost of feeding and clothing them very considerable, and upon the whole he, a southern overseer, pronounced himself decidedly in favour of free labour, upon grounds of expediency.  Having at the beginning of our conversation declined discussing the moral aspect of slavery, evidently not thinking that position tenable, I thought I had every right to consider Mr. ——­’s slave-driver a decided abolitionist.