Ah, Doctor, you can
emancipate him, but you can't emancipate yourself. You are willing to
give him the liberty of a dog; he may sleep in your stable, exercise
himself in the coachyard, and may stand or run behind your carriage,
but he must not enter the house, for he is offensive, nor eat at your
table, for the way he devours his food is wolfish; you unchain him,
and that is all. But before the collar was unfastened he was well and
regularly fed, now he has to forage for it; and if he can't pay for
his grub, he can and will steal it. Abolition has done great things
for him. He was once a life-labourer on a plantation in the south, he
is now a prisoner for life in a penitentiary in the north, or an idle
vagrant, and a shameless, houseless beggar. The fruit of cant is
indeed bitter. The Yankees emancipated their niggers because it didn't
pay to keep slaves. They now want the southern planters to liberate
theirs for conscience sake. But here we are on the beach; let us
land."
After taking a survey of the scene from the sight of the old town, we
sat down on one of the eastern mounds, and the doctor continued his
account of the place. "It took the French twenty-fire years to erect
Louisburg," he said, "and though not completed according to the
original design, it cost not less than thirty millions of livres. It
was environed, two miles and a half in circumference, with a stone
wall from thirty to thirty-six feet high, and a ditch eighty feet
wide.
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