Thus, when the slave asks for a few hours of virtuous freedom, his cunning master takes advantage of his ignorance, and cheers him with a dose of vicious and revolting dissipation, artfully labeled with the name of LIBERTY.

We were induced to drink, I among the rest, and when the holidays were over, we all staggered up from our filth and wallowing, took a long breath, and went away to our various fields of work; feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go from that which our masters artfully deceived us into the belief was freedom, back again to the arms of slavery.

It was not what we had taken it to be, nor what it might have been, had it not been abused by us.

It was about as well to be a slave to _master_, as to be a slave to _rum_ and _whisky._ I am the more induced to take this view of the holiday system,{198} adopted by slaveholders, from what I know of their treatment of slaves, in regard to other things.

It is the commonest thing for them to try to disgust their slaves with what they do not want them to have, or to enjoy.