But policy, a regard for the interest of the owner of the estate, generally prevented the infliction of ill treatment and privations which bore severely on the slaves; and public opinion, as well as the laws of the colony, restrained the manager from the commission of extraordinary acts of cruelty. In the British island of Tortola, only a few years before my sojourn in Grenada, the manager of a plantation was arrested for causing the death of a slave by inhuman punishment. He was tried, convicted of murder, and hanged. The penalty exacted met the sanction of public opinion. A full report of the trial was published in a pamphlet form and circulated among the islands, and was doubtless the means of preventing similar acts of monstrous cruelty. Chapter XXVIII. SCENES IN GRENADA Owing to the many delays on my route across the mountains, it was twilight when I reached an ordinary looking house, situated on an elevated piece of land surrounded on every side by fields of sugar cane. The lands in the vicinity appeared low, and there were indications of swamps at no great distance. About a mile off, in a northerly direction, was the broad ocean. A mule, saddled and bridled, stood at the door. My guide told me, with an air of triumph, that this was the Upper Pearl estate. As I alighted from my mule, a tall man, with a sad countenance, thin and pallid cheeks, and a tottering frame, came out of the house leaning upon the arm of another person. This sickly-looking gentleman, who proved to be the manager, welcomed me to the plantation, and expressed satisfaction at my arrival. He was on the point of leaving the estate for a few days, he said, on a visit to a friend near the mountains. In the mean time Mr. Murray, the gentleman by whom he was supported, was to look after the plantation and attend to my comforts. This spectral-looking object then, with difficulty, mounted his mule, and accompanied by an able-bodied negro on foot, slowly rode away from the estate. Mr. Murray received me with cordiality, and tendered me the hospitalities of the mansion. He was a man of pleasing address and more than ordinary intelligence. I afterwards learned that he was the secretary of Mr. Church, the attorney for the Pearl estates. After some little conversation, he abruptly asked me what quarter of the world I came from. "I am an American," was my not very definite reply. "O," he remarked, with a significant wink, which was evidently intended as a good-natured hint, "you are from Canada, or Nova Scotia, I suppose." "No, sir," said I, emphatically, determined that my position should be distinctly understood, "I was born in the town of Tyngsboro, in the state of Massachusetts, and am a citizen of the United States." Having a vague suspicion that the Pearl estate was not the paradise described by Bohun, I inquired why the manager had left the estate so abruptly. "Because he is attacked with fever, and would not live forty-eight hours if he remained here."