Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/98

This page needs to be proofread.

face, and poured whiskey down its throat, in order to prolong the sport. It, however, for several minutes before it was untied, became speechless and motionless, as the tree to which it was bound. It could feel and writhe and smart under the merciless lash no longer.

"Good God! exclaimed I, where am I? on the earth which thou hast created, and didst once pronounce blessed; or in the Pandemonium of the heathen? Heaven, I knew it could not be, for a cruel task-master, his hands imbrued in human blood, had just crossed my path! Is it then, I continued, free America? an asylum for the distressed and oppressed of all other lands; the land of my adored Washington; the adopted country of my dearest friends; the only country on this huge cursed earth, where liberty finds an ark, or rest for the sole of her pained foot; and the country to which I came with every fond prejudice and predilection! What! free, and yet offer up human sacrifice! Monstrous anomaly! Go; fly these hasty lines through the world! Challenge offended {75} humanity to produce a spectacle so genuinely hellish, or so purely demoniacal! Did, sir, ever a sabbath-sun dawn on a catastrophe so abhorrent to your feelings, or those of

Sir, your most obedient servant,

W. Faux.

Planter's Hotel, Charleston,
June 2, 1819."


A great noise was heard as soon as the Courier appeared; some approving, others disapproving, as interest or humanity prompted. James Gregory, Esq. first called this morning, regretting that I had thus written. He then introduced me to a noble Marquis, now the French consul here, with whom I dined, and who very condescendingly