he is neglected and treated with contempt. Sir, my doctrine is, let the hardest fend off."

M. "You have expressed my sentiments and feelings better than I could myself; and I am happy to fall in with company possessed of principles so congenial with my own.. I have no doubt these two brothers are as honourable among their associates and clan as any men on earth, but perfect devils to their enemies they are undaunted spirits, and can never be found when they are not armed like men of war. The citizens of Madison once attempted to arrest the elder brother for having three of a certain Mr. Long's negroes in his possession; and they carried nearly a whole captain's company for a guard; and if they had not taken a cowardly advantage of him, he would have backed them all-though he cared nothing for the charge. He knew they could not hurt him; but they took him prisoner, and carried him before an old fool of a squire, who neither knew nor cared for the law or his duty, and would have committed him against positive proof; and there is no doubt Long perjured himself in endeavouring to convict him. The people thought he was good for the penitentiary, but he laughed at them, and told them they were all fools; that it was only a finable offence, to make the worst of it. He had plenty of friends to bail him. On the day of the trial, the house was thronged to hear it. He had employed the most eminent lawyer at the bar, Andrew L. Martin; and, during the trial, he took his lawyer aside and cursed him, and told him he paid him his money to work for him, and that he could not get him to work the way he

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wanted him. He showed Martin the law, and got him in the way; and he gave them trouble. He is a flowery fellow, but he has not dived into the quirks of the law, like his client. They mulcted him with a fine and the costs of suit; and, in case his property would not make the amount, he was to become Long's slave for five years. When the verdict was read, he winked at Long and called him Master Billy. He took an appeal to the Supreme Court, and there is no doubt of his getting rid of the whole scrape at the May term, in spite of all the prejudice that is against him. But the matter has been attended with bad consequences: one of his strongest friends has suffered in consequence of suspicion of being his friend. He was the deputy sheriff, and as fine a fellow as ever lived. After they found that they could do nothing with him at law, they formed a company, which they called Captain Slick's company, and advertised for all honest men to meet at a certain school-house in the neighbourhood on a certain day. They met and bound themselves in certain matters; made rules and laws for the government of the company; and in this company he had some strong friends, who would inform him of their movements in the shortest time. He got several guns, and made an immense quantity of cartridges, and prepared his house and buildings with port-holes, ready for an engagement. On the day they published that they would be there to slick him, he had eighteen friends who came to his assistance. He disposed of them in different buildings, so as to command a fair fire to rake the door of his dwelling; but they got a hint that it would be a dangerous under

taking, and gave it up as a bad job: and a fine thing for them; for if they had gone, he would have been apt to cut them all off, situated as he was-and the law would have protected him in the course he intended to pursue.

“But all who have had any thing to do with it have got sick of it, and are trying to make fair weather with him. Not that they love him, but because they dread him as they do the very devil himself—and well they may, for he has sworn vengeance against them, and he will execute it. He is a fellow of such smooth and genteel manners, that he is very imposing and many of the more credulous part of the community are induced to believe that he is persecuted by Long, when he only intended friendship and kindness in catching his negroes for him. He well knows how to excite the sympathy of the human heart, and turn things to his advantage. He rarely fails to captivate the feelings of those whom he undertakes; and, what is more astonishing, he has succeeded in many instances where the strongest prejudice has existed; and, where his revenge has been excited, he never fails to effect either the destruction of their property or character, and frequently both. He has often been compelled to remove prejudices of the strongest kind, for the purpose of getting a man into his power whom he wished to destroy. In a matter of this kind he has never-tiring perseverance; and many have become wise when it was too late, and sunk under the influence of his great managing powers..

"There is an old Methodist preacher and his son, who had two very fine negro men stolen a short

time back; and this old Parson Henning and his son were officious in procuring counsel, and expressing their sentiments about him and his brother, and saying what the country ought to do with them, and all such stuff as this and I have no doubt but those two young men have got them. They live within about two miles of the old preacher, and he and his son are as much afraid of those two young men as if they were two ravenous beasts that were turned loose in the forest: if they were sure of finding their negroes by following them off, they would sooner lose their property than fall into the hands of those dreaded men.

"In fact, they have managed with such skill that they have become a complete terror to the country; and, when property is missing in that country, and there is any suspicion that those two young men are concerned with it, all is given up as lost, and it is considered time and money spent in vain to follow them."

S. "These two young men must possess talents and acquirements of the first order, or they could never sustain themselves in a community where there are such strong prejudices against them. And that elder brother of whom you speak must be endowed with some supernatural power, or an extraordinary capacity and practical experience; for to overcome the prejudices of a stubborn nature is considered the hardest change to effect in the human mind. I would warrant them to be devoted friends and noble spirits in the sphere in which they move, and this old preacher you speak of is no more, even if he is what he pretends to be, and that, you know, we can doubt as we please, or rather as it best suits our convenience. He

was their enemy, and treated them as such, when they had not been hostile to him, and they are his enemies now, for cause ;—and if they are what my imagination has made them, he will have cause to repent in sackcloth and ashes for his sins. But, sir, to my doctrine; let the hardest fend off. They are enemies, and let them lock horns. Of what age is that wondrous man

you speak of?"

M. "He is about thirty, I suppose, and his brother just grown up, and as smart a fellow as the elder brother, but not half the experience. I will tell you of one of his routs on a speculation a few months past, and you can judge for yourself whether he is possessed of talents or not. There was a negro man by the name of Sam, that had been sold out of the neighbourhood of those two young men to a man by the name of Eason, near Florence, Alabama. The elder brother was passing that way on one of his scouts, and happening to see Sam, inquired of him how he liked his new home and master? 'Bad enough,' said Sam. 'Well,' said he, 'Sam, you know me; and you know how to leave the rascal; run away and get back to your old range, and all things are safe.' It was not long before Sam was at his house. He harboured him until Eason advertised him as a runaway, and offered a reward for him; that was what he wanted to see. He procured a copy of the advertisement, and put it and the negro into the hands of his brother and a fellow by the name of Forsyth, and told them to push and make hay while the sun shone: they were gone about seven weeks, and his brother returned with about fourteen hundred dollars in cash, seven hundred dollars