The _name_ of this witness cannot be published, as it would put him in
peril; but his _credibility_ is vouched for by the Rev. Ezra Fisher,
pastor of the Baptist Church, Quincy, Illinois, and Dr. Richard Eels,
of the same place. These gentlemen say of him, "We have great
confidence in his integrity, discretion, and strict Christian
principle." He says--
"About five years ago, I remember to have passed, in _a single day_,
four droves of slaves for the south west; the largest drove had 350
slaves in it, and the smallest upwards of 200. I counted 68 or 70 in
a single _coffle_. The '_coffle chain_' is a chain fastened at one
end to the centre of the bar of a pair of hand cuffs, which are
fastened to the right wrist of one, and the left wrist of another
slave, they standing abreast, and the chain between them. These are
the head of the coffle. The other end is passed through a ring in the
bolt of the next handcuffs, and the slaves being manacled thus, two
and two together, walk up, and the coffle chain is passed, and they go
up towards the head of the coffle. Of course they are closer or wider
apart in the coffle, according to the number to be coffled, and to the
length of the chain. _I have seen HUNDREDS of droves and
chain-coffles of this description_, and every coffle was a scene of
misery and wo, of tears and brokenness of heart."
Mr. SAMUEL HALL a teacher in Marietta College, Ohio, gives, in a late
letter, the following statement of a fellow student, from Kentucky, of
whom he says, "he is a professor of religion, and worthy of entire
confidence."
"I have seen at least _fifteen_ droves of 'human cattle,' passing by
us on their way to the south; and I do not recollect an exception,
where there were not more or less of them _chained_ together."
Mr. GEORGE P.C. HUSSEY, of Fayetteville, Franklin county,
Pennsylvania, writes thus:
"I was born and raised in Hagerstown, Washington county, Maryland,
where slavery is perhaps milder than in any other part of the slave
states; and yet I have seen _hundreds_ of colored men and women
chained together, two by two, and driven to the south. I have seen
slaves tied up and lashed till the blood ran down to their heels."
Mr. GIDDINGS, member of Congress from Ohio, in his speech in the House
of Representatives, Feb. 13, 1839, made the following statement:
"On the beautiful avenue in front of the Capitol, members of Congress,
during this session, have been compelled to turn aside from their
path, to permit a coffle of slaves, males and females, _chained to
each other by their necks_, to pass on their way to this _national
slave market_."
Testimony of JAMES K. PAULDING, Esq. the present Secretary of the
United States' Navy.
In 1817, Mr. Paulding published a work, entitled 'Letters from the
South, written during an excursion in the summer of 1816.' In the
first volume of that work, page 128, Mr. P. gives the following
description:
"The sun was shining out very hot--and in turning the angle of the
road, we encountered the following group: first, a little cart drawn
by one horse, in which five or six half naked black children were
tumbled like pigs together. The cart had no covering, and they seemed
to have been broiled to sleep. Behind the cart marched three black
women, with head, neck and breasts uncovered, and without shoes or
stockings: next came three men, bare-headed, and _chained together
with an ox-chain_. Last of all, came a white man on horse back,
carrying his pistols in his belt, and who, as we passed him, had the
impudence to look us in the face without blushing. At a house where we
stopped a little further on, we learned that he had bought these
miserable beings in Maryland, and was marching them in this manner to
one of the more southern states. Shame on the State of Maryland! and I
say, shame on the State of Virginia! and every state through which
this wretched cavalcade was permitted to pass! I do say, that when
they (the slaveholders) permit such flagrant and indecent outrages
upon humanity as that I have described; when they sanction a villain
in thus marching half naked women and men, loaded with chains, without
being charged with any crime but that of being _black_ from one
section of the United States to another, hundreds of miles in the face
of day, they disgrace themselves, and the country to which they
belong."[10]
[Footnote 10: The fact that Mr. Paulding, in the reprint of these
"Letters," in 1835, struck out this passage with all others
disparaging to slavery and its supporters, does not impair the force
of his testimony, however much it may sink the man. Nor will the next
generation regard with any more reverence, his character as a prophet,
because in the edition of 1835, two years after the American
Antislavery Society was formed, and when its auxiliaries were numbered
by hundreds, he inserted a _prediction_ that such movements would be
made at the North, with most disastrous results. "Wot ye not that such
a man as I can certainly divine!" Mr. Paulding has already been taught
by Judge Jay, that he who aspires to the fame of an oracle, without
its inspiration, must resort to other expedients to prevent detection,
than the clumsy one of _antedating_ his responses.]