Armfield himself was "a man of fine personal appearance, and of engaging and graceful manners"; and his firm was said to have gained the confidence of all the countryside by its honorable dealings and by its resolute efforts to discourage kidnapping.

It was said to be highly esteemed even among the negroes.[29] [Footnote 29: E.A.Andrews, _Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States_ (Boston, 1836), pp.

135, 143, 150.] Soon afterward this traveler made a short voyage on the Potomac with a trader of a much more vulgar type who was carrying about fifty slaves, mostly women with their children, to Fredericksburg and thence across the Carolinas.

Overland, the trader said, he was accustomed to cover some twenty-five miles a day, with the able-bodied slaves on foot and the children in wagons.

The former he had found could cover these marches, after the first few days, without much fatigue.