Mr. Freeland lived only
three miles from St. Michael's, on an old worn out farm, which
required much labor to restore it to anything like a self-
supporting establishment.
I was not long in finding Mr. Freeland to be a very different man
from Mr. Covey. Though not rich, Mr. Freeland was what may be
called a well-bred southern gentleman, as different from Covey,
as a well-trained and hardened Negro breaker is from the best
specimen of the first families of the south. Though Freeland was
a slaveholder, and shared many of the vices of his class, he
seemed alive to the sentiment of honor. He had some sense of
justice, and some feelings of humanity. He was fretful,
impulsive and passionate, but I must do him the justice to say,
he was free from the mean and selfish characteristics which
distinguished the creature from which I had now, happily,
escaped. He was open, frank, imperative, and practiced no
concealments, <199 RELIGIOUS SLAVEHOLDERS>disdaining to play the
spy. In all this, he was the opposite of the crafty Covey.
Among the many advantages gained in my change from Covey's to
Freeland's--startling as the statement may be--was the fact that
the latter gentleman made no profession of religion.
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