It is
extremely annoying, from the unpleasant feeling it excites, that you are
suspected if not watched (this applies forcibly to the slave districts);
and it is a habit that has arisen purely from the incongruity of society
at large on the American continent, and a want of that subdivision of
class that exists in Europe.
During my visits to the various hotels while I remained in Charleston,
for the purpose of collecting information, I was several times
interrogated in a barefaced manner by the visitors who frequent those
places, as to my politics, and especially as to my principles in regard
to the institution of slavery; now, as I was not unaware that my
intimacy with the gentleman of colour, which I have already referred to,
had got abroad, I was obliged to be extremely guarded in my replies on
such occasions. It was on one of these that I felt myself in great
hazard, for two individuals in the company were discussing with much
energy, the question of amalgamation (that is, marriage, contracted
between black and white men and women), and I was listening intently to
their altercation, when suddenly one of them, eyeing me with malicious
gaze, no doubt having noticed my attention to the colloquy, said,
"Your opinion, stranger, on this subject; I guess you understand it
torrably well, as you seem to be pretty hard on B----'s eldest
daughter.
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