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ADVENTURES OF CHARLES BALL. 69

I saw in possession of Mr. Randolph’s slave driver
in Virginia. I seriously meditated on self-destruc-
tion, and had I been at liberty to get a rope, I believe
I should have hanged myself at Lancaster. It ap-
peared to me that such an act, done by a man in my
situation, could not be a violation of the precepts of
religion, nor of the laws of God.

I had now no hope of ever again seeing my wife
and children, or of revisiting the scenes of my youth.
I apprehended that I should, if I lived, suffer the
most excruciating pangs that extreme and long con-
tinued hunger could inflict; for I had often heard,
that in South Carolina, the slaves were compelled in
times of scarcity, to live on cotton seeds.

From the dreadful apprehensions of future evil,
which harrassed and harrowed my mind that night,
I do not marvel, that the slaves who are driven to
the south often destroy themselves. Self-destruc-
tion is much more frequent among the slaves in the
cotton region than is generally supposed. When a
negro kills himself, the master is unwilling to let it
be known, lest the deed should be attributed to his
own cruelty. A certain degree of disgrace falls upon
the master whose slave has committed suicide—and
the same man, who would stand by, and see his
overseer give his slave a hundred lashes, with the
long whip, on his bare back, without manifesting
the least pity for the sufferings of the poor tortured
wretch, will express very profound regret if the same
slave terminates his own life, to avoid a repetition of
the horrid flogging. Suicide amongst the slaves is