One of the worst features of this polluting system is that female slaves are neither protected by law, or restrained by public opinion. Their masters own them as property, and have despotic control over their actions; and such is their degraded condition, that to be the mistress of a white man is an object of ambition rather than of shame. The same result would be produced upon any class of people under similar circumstances. They are taught from infancy that they have no character to gain or to lose; and their whole moral code consists in one maxim--obedience to the white men. The personal kindness of their masters, though founded on the most impure feelings, is likely to shelter them in some degree from harsh treatment, and to procure for them those articles of finery upon which all ignorant people place an inordinate value. The idea of obtaining money to purchase freedom is likewise a frequent incentive to immorality. It is not proposed to disgust the reader with a recapitulation of facts in proof of these remarks. It is sufficient to say that female virtue is a thing not even supposed to exist among slaves; and that when individual instances of it occur, it sometimes meets with severe castigation, and generally with contemptuous ridicule. It may well be supposed that those who are delicately termed “favorite slaves,” sometimes become very pert and impudent, in consequence of their situation in their master’s family. A female slave in Baltimore was, for obvious reasons, very odious in the eyes of her mistress, who let no opportunity escape of getting her flogged for some misdemeanor, real or pretended. The master, for reasons equally obvious, was always reluctant to give orders for her punishment; but he was sometimes obliged to do so, for the sake of domestic peace. On such occasions, the slave flounced about the house, and boasted that every whipping he ordered her should cost him a handsome sum for broken china. Stedman relates that Mrs. S--lk--r, of Surinam, having observed, among some newly imported slaves, a negro girl of remarkably fine figure and expressive countenance, immediately ordered the poor creature’s mouth, cheeks, and forehead to be burned with red-hot iron, and the tendon of her heel to be cut. These cruel orders were given from mere prospective jealousy of her husband; and to gratify this wicked passion, the unoffending girl was maimed and deformed for life.