Confide, then, in your slaves, as far as these qualities will allow you to do it. They will not disappoint your confidence, as seriously, at least, as many others with the same opportunities would probably do it. Give attention to their comfort in little things. This will not cost you much, and will show your care for them. Pay due respect to their feelings and their reputation. This may cost you no more than a pleasant look or a kind word. Never be backward under proper circumstances to trust them in any thing in which it is proper to trust persons in a menial position. This course will not be without its effect. Confidence will beget confidence. For one to be respected by others, goes far to beget respect in one’s self. With a reasonable degree of self-respect in the slave, and confidence in the kindness and justice of his master, his discipline cannot fail to be salutary. He may punish in cases of disobedience with great firmness, and to a merited extent, and it will not fail to produce shame and mortification. His authority will be “a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that do well.” The public opinion of his little commonwealth will fully sustain his administration. The counsels of age, the cutting jokes of early manhood, and the merry laugh of the young, will all unite to teach the offender a valuable lesson. He who governs a plantation of slaves without the aid of a certain measure of public opinion, is a loser in the end. Some masters affect to despise this. Brute force may sustain them; but the public opinion even of so humble a commonwealth as a plantation of slaves is not to be despised. The sensible and humane master, who would obey the apostolic precept, and maintain a sound and judicious discipline among his slaves, will obey what is equally implied in another injunction, and entitle himself to the respect and confidence of his subjects. Tyrants who have operated upon wider and nobler fields have affected to despise public opinion, and lost their crowns. The petty tyrants of whom we treat cannot fail to lose the respect of their neighbors. It is impossible to respect a man whose policy infests the neighborhood with a band of freebooters, and this policy will rarely fail to reduce such a man to poverty also.