The comforts of slaves in different situations are widely disproportionate; whilst some are doomed to an existence of excessive toil and misery, from the nature of their occupations and the characters of their masters, others lead a comparatively easy life. It is true, that in countries of which the workmen are free, the daily labour is unequally divided, but their wages are proportioned accordingly, and as each man is a free agent he seeks that employment to which his bodily and mental powers are befitted. The slave is purchased for a certain purpose, and is to follow the line of life which his master has chalked out for him; he is not to be occupied in that which he would himself prefer, or at any rate his wishes are not consulted upon the subject. The price for which a slave is to be obtained, and the convenience of the purchaser are oftener consulted than the fitness of his bodily strength to the labour which it is his lot to be ordered to perform. Besides the obligation of following an unsuitable trade, or at any rate of following one which he has not chosen, he has to endure the still incomparably greater grievance of bearing with a tyrannical, an inconsiderate, or a peevish master, whose commands are not to be called in question, whose will is absolute, and from whom the possibility of appeal is far removed, and that of redress placed at a still greater distance. Masters are punished by the payment of fines, for cruelty to their slaves, if any account of such behaviour should reach the ear of the _Ouvidor_ of the province; but I never heard of punishment having been carried farther than this trifling manner of correction. The emoluments which proceed from this mode of chastising the offenders weigh heavily in its favour; the injury which the slave has received is not, I am afraid, the only cause which urges the exaction of the stipulated penalty; of this the slave does not receive any part.