Up to this time the slave-trade had been looked upon most unfavorably by the people of the South.  Among the first sermons I remember to have heard, was one depicting the horrors of this trade.  I was by my grandmother’s side at Bethany, in Greene county, and, though a child, I remember, as if of yesterday, the description of the manner of capturing the African in his native wilds—­how the mother and father were murdered, and the boys and the girls borne away, and how England was abused for the cruel inhumanity of the act.  Although unused to the melting mood, the old lady wiped from her eyes a tear, whether in sorrow or sympathy for outraged humanity, or in compliment to the pathos and power of her favorite preacher, I was too young to know or have an opinion.  I remember well, however, that she cried, for she pinched me most unmercifully for laughing at her, and at home spanked me for crying.  Dear old grandmother! but yesterday I was at your grave, where you have slept fifty-two years, and if I laughed above thy mould at the memory of the many bouts we had more than sixty years ago, and, from the blue bending above, thy spirit looked down in wrath upon the unnatural outrage, be appeased ere I come; for I should fear to meet thee, even in heaven, if out of humor!  The roses bloomed above you—­sweet emblems of thy purity and rest—­and there, close by you, were the pear-trees, planted by your hands, around the roots of which you gathered the rods of my reformation; for I was a truant child.  You meant it all for my good, no doubt; but to me it was passing through purgatory then, to merit a future good in time.  Ah! how well I remember it—­all of it. Requiescat in pace.  I had almost irreverently said, “Rest, cat, in peace.”

It was at this period that the competition for accumulating money may be said to have commenced in Middle Georgia.  Labor became in great demand, and the people began to look leniently upon the slave-trade.  The marching of Africans, directly imported, through the country for sale, is a memory of sixty-five years ago.  The demand had greatly increased, and, with this, the price.  The trade was to cease in 1808, and the number brought over was daily augmenting, to hasten to make from the traffic as much money as possible before this time should arrive.  The demand, however, was greater than could be supplied.  From house to house they were carried for sale.  They were always young men and women, or girls and boys, and their clothing was of the simplest kind.  That of the men and boys consisted of drawers, only reaching midway the thigh, from the waist.  The upper portions of the person and the lower extremities were entirely nude.  The females wore a chemise reaching a few inches below the knee, leaving bare the limbs.  This was adopted for the purpose of exposing the person, as much as decency would permit, for examination, so as to enable the purchaser to determine their individual capacity for labor.  This examination was close