Finally, on the basis of information drawn from rare and miscellaneous sources it becomes apparent that in slavery times there was more kindliness and intimacy between the races than existed afterwards. In those days many slaves were treated as if part of the master's family: when sick they were nursed and cared for; when too old to work they were provided for; and some were remembered in the master's will.[163] Negroes did run away, and numbers of them desired to be free, but when manumission came not a few of them preferred to stay with their former owners. It was the opinion of an advocate of emancipation that they were better off as slaves than they could possibly be as freemen.[164] Such was slavery in Pennsylvania. If on the one hand there was the chance of families being sold apart; if there was seen the cargo, the slave-drove, the auction sale; it must be remembered that such things are inseparable from the institution of slavery, and that on the other hand they were rare, and not to be weighed against the positive comfort and well-being of which there is such abundant proof. If ever it be possible not to condemn modern slavery, it might seem that slavery as it existed in Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century was a good, probably for the masters, certainly for the slaves.[165] The fact is that it existed in such mitigated form that it was impossible for it to be perpetuated. Whenever men can treat their slaves as men in Pennsylvania treated them, they are living in a moral atmosphere inconsistent with the holding of slaves. Nothing can then preserve slavery but paramount economic needs. In Pennsylvania, since such needs were not paramount, slavery was doomed. FOOTNOTES: [109] Acrelius, _Description of New Sweden_, 169 (1759); Kalm, _Travels_, I, 394 (1748); Hector St. John Crèvecoeur, _Letters from an American Farmer_, 222 (just before the Revolution). [110] When one of Christopher Marshall's white servants "struck and kickt" his negro woman, he "could scarcely refrain from kicking him out of the House &c &c &c." MS. Remembrancer, E, July 22, 1779. [111] Kalm, I, 394; St. John Crèvecoeur, 221. Benjamin Lay contradicts this, but allowance must always he made for the extremeness of his assertions. _Cf._ his _All Slave-Keepers Apostates_ (1737), 93. [112] Acrelius, 169.