On behalf of
my own race, I am glad and can only hope that an inscrutable Providence
means good to both parties.
There is an historical circumstance, known to few, that connects the
children of the Puritans with these Africans of Virginia in a very
singular way. They are our brethren, as being lineal descendants from
the Mayflower, the fated womb of which, in her first voyage, sent forth a
brood of Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, spawned
slaves upon the Southern soil,--a monstrous birth, but with which we have
an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an irresistible
impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood and ruin. The
character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little by this
revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark one,--and
two such portents never sprang from an identical source before.
While we drove onward, a young officer on horseback looked earnestly into
the carriage, and recognized some faces that he had seen before; so he
rode along by our side, and we pestered him with queries and
observations, to which he responded more civilly than they deserved. He
was on General McClellan's staff; and a gallant cavalier, high-booted,
with a revolver in his belt, and mounted on a noble horse, which trotted
hard and high without disturbing the rider in his accustomed seat.
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