# The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 46

Contents
When I recovered my senses, I found myself on a bed, with four or five black women about me, applying various restoratives; and, as I opened my eyes, they burst out with great shouts of delight.
I found afterwards that, during my fainting fit, my pockets, as well as my saddle-bags, had been thoroughly searched, in hopes of obtaining some proofs to corroborate the suspicions raised against me by the sympathy I had exhibited.
But the only papers found were some letters of credit and introduction addressed from Liverpool to mercantile houses of established character in Charleston and New Orleans, in which I was described as an English traveller, on a tour partly of business and partly of pleasure.
Upon the production and public reading of these letters, a great difference of opinion had sprung up ​among the sovereigns assembled at Eglinton, acting in my case as a committee of vigilance with full powers, of the extent of which so terrible an instance had just been exhibited before my eyes.
The mere fact that I was an Englishman went very far with many of the ruder sort to confirm the supposition that I must be an abolitionist and a conspirator. The draught of water which I had persisted in procuring for Thomas was regarded by several as a very suspicious circumstance. The words I had privately addressed to him, and the appearance of some understanding between him and myself, weighed very heavily against me. The remonstrances I had made against the cruel death to which he had just been subjected were set down as, at the very best, a great piece of impertinent interference — especially coming from an Englishman.
The same ruffian who had already twice interfered between Thomas and myself, and who had caused my seizure as a suspected person, now assumed the part of chief prosecutor. He argued, with great zeal, that I must be an emissary of the English abolitionists, and perhaps of the English government, sent out on purpose to stir up a slave revolt, and, from what had passed between me and Wild Tom, apparently in correspondence with that dangerous outlaw, and the least that could be done, in his opinion, with any proper regard for the public safety, was to give me a sound flogging, and to ride me on a rail out of the county.
This proposal was very favorably received; and nothing but the strenuous exertions of the planter whose acquaintance I had made on the road saved me from falling a victim to it. As I had entered Eglinton in his company, he seemed to consider me, in some sort, as under his protection; and he accordingly took up my cause with no little zeal. My overtaking him on the road — so he argued — was a matter of pure accident; my interference on behalf of the bloody murderer, upon whom such just, proper, and ​signal vengeance had been taken, was only a piece of misjudged humanity. It was not to be supposed that a stranger, and an Englishman, could enter into all of their feelings. While adopting all proper means promptly to suppress and punish all interference with the domestic institutions of the south, for which nobody was more zealous than he, they ought to be careful how they overstripped the limits of reason and prudence. If I had been only a northerner, it would be safe enough to maltreat me to any extent, even to burn me alive, as they just had done the "nigger." Those pitiful Yankees might be whipped, kicked, and otherwise punished, to any extent, with reason or without, and there would not be the least danger of any rumpus about it, for fear it might diminish the trade with the south. But to meddle with an Englishman was quite another affair: England did not allow any of her people to be maltreated with impunity. It was apparent from my letters that I was a person who had money and friends, and those concerned in any irregular violence inflicted upon me might find themselves called upon to answer for it. To be sure, the United States could whip' the British again, as they had done in the last war. But still, in the present excited state of the slave population, a war with England was not exactly desirable. Such, as he afterwards informed me, was the general tenor of the argument by which my planter friend had saved me from the clutches of the vigilance committee. Had he or they suspected my true history, how different the result might have been!
While this discussion had been going on, I had been conveyed to the tavern, still in a senseless condition, where the negro women, with their usual good nature, had exerted themselves, as I have mentioned already, for my recovery. My planter friend soon made his appearance. He saw that I was not yet in a condition to resume my journey; and as the village, and especially the tavern and its neighborhood, ​still continued a scene of drunken uproar, such as made my further stay there neither conducive to my health nor perhaps compatible with my safety, he insisted upon taking me to his own house. This invitation, under the circumstances, I was glad to accept; and keeping my room for three or four days, I gradually recovered, and grew strong again.
My host, who of course was without any clew to the special interest which I had in the death of Thomas, seemed rather surprised at the serious effect which that incident had produced upon me; nor could he otherwise explain it except by supposing that alarm for my own personal safety had a great share in it. He therefore exerted all his eloquence, as well to reassure me personally as to vindicate the reputation of the southern states against any conclusions which I might hastily draw. He,assured me, upon his honor, that such scenes as I had witnessed were not by any means common. Once in a while the indignation of the people, roused to the highest pitch by some atrocious villany on the part of some negro, did vent itself in the way I had witnessed. But this burning alive was quite an exceptional circumstance. He had never known more than two or three other instances of it, and those provoked by some horrible misdemeanor, such as the murder of a white man, or the rape of a white woman. He hoped I should be candid enough to admit that a few such instances could not be considered as seriously detracting from the claims of the southern states to stand in the highest ranks of civilization and Christianity. The fact was, the negroes were such a set of unmitigated savages, that occasional examples were necessary to inspire them with a wholesome degree of dread.
1 was not at present in a state of mind to conduct an argument with much advantage. Besides, notwithstanding my host's personal kindness towards me, I very soon discovered, what the circumstances under which I had first met him might have given ​me sufficient assurance of, that upon the subject of the evils or wrongs of slavery, he was perfectly impenetrable. Remembering, therefore, the evangelical injunction of not casting pearls before swine's feet, I contented myself with letting him understand that, however it might be in America, which I freely admitted to be a great country, the practices of slave hunts and negro burning were wholly incompatible with my English ideas of civilization or Christianity. This statement of my sentiment was received by my host with a gracious smile, a condescending wave of the hand, and the observation — evidently intended to be apologetical for my heresies, and exculpatory of them — that the prejudices of John Bull, upon some points, were unaccountable.
These mutual explanations occurred very soon after reaching the planter's house. As hopeless, apparently, of convicting me, as I was of making any impression upon him, he allowed the subject to drop; and during the remainder of my stay with him, we conversed upon indifferent matters only. As soon as I felt able to ride, I hastened to resume my journey — not without a friendly warning from my host to be cautious how I gave utterance to my English prejudices. When travelling in Turkey, — so he remarked, without seeming to be aware how little creditable the comparison was to his state of South Carolina, — it was best to do as they did in Turkey, or, at least, to let the Turks do as they chose, without interference or observation.