Two
small apertures in the wall, about fourteen inches square, and
double-barred with heavy flat iron, served to admit light and air.
The reader may thus judge of its gloomy appearance, and what a
miserable unhealthy cell it must have been in which to place men
just arrived from sea. There was not the first vestige of furniture
in the room, not; even a bench to sit upon, for the State, with its
gracious hospitality, forgot that men in jail ever sit down; but it
was in keeping with all other things that the State left to the
control of its officials.
"Am I to be punished in this miserable place? Why, I cannot see
where I'm going; and have I nothing to lay down upon but the floor,
and that creeping with live creatures?" inquired Manuel of those who
were already inured to the hardship.
"Nothing! nothing! Bring your mind to realize the worst, and forget
the cruelty while you are suffering it; they let us out a part of
the day. We are locked up to-day because one of the assistants stole
my friend's liquor, and he dared to accuse him of the theft, because
he was a white man," said a tall, fine-looking mulatto man by the
name of James Redman, who was steward on board a Thomastown (Maine)
ship, and declared that he had visited Charleston on a former
occasion, and by paying five dollars to one of the officers,
remained on board of the ship unmolested.
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