It was not unusual for debts to accumulate and even to be handed down from father to son. The creditors rather favored this state of things, as the debt drew interest. As long as there were plenty of slaves, their ultimate payment was secure whenever they chose to press for it. If the money was not then forthcoming, their redress was certain--a descent followed of that brutal intermediary, "the nigger dealer," loathed and dreaded alike by master and servant. A sufficient amount of the human property was speedily secured and driven off for sale to satisfy the creditor. To the slave, torn from his home and his life-long ties, it was despair. To the master's family, often a bitter grief. They might shut themselves up and weep at the outrage, but they were powerless in the face of an inexorable system. To the master, therefore, as the slaves increased, there could often be no alternative between ruthless sale and financial ruin. Thomas King Carroll, honorable, humane, unwilling to sell his slaves, immersed during the best years of his life in political affairs, found in later years his burdens increasing, and his kindness of heart had involved him also in some especial difficulties. He had on several occasions allowed his name to be used as security for friends in difficulty. Two or three of these debts remained unpaid and the responsibility came upon him. One especially, of an unusually large amount, involved him in embarrassment which led him to determine on the sale of his plantation. A neighbor and intimate friend, Mr. Dennis, was desirous to purchase, and very sorrowfully Thomas King Carroll came to the resolution to give up his ancestral home. As he was accustomed to say, he loved every corner and every stone upon the place, but the burden had become too great for his declining strength. The sale was effected and Mr. Carroll removed to Dorchester county, on the eastern side of the Chesapeake, with his unmarried children, and here he died, in 1873, in his 80th year. Governor Carroll is described in the annals of the State as "one of the best men Maryland has ever produced," a man of _character unsullied_ and of lofty integrity. At the breaking out of the civil war Mr. Carroll was already an elderly man. At first his sympathies were with his own section, but after the attack on Fort Sumter they were steadily enlisted for the National cause, though he foresaw that its triumph would lead to the destruction of his own fortunes and those of his children. Most of the slaves had been left on the plantation, but some had always been considered the especial property of each of his children.