"From thence we proceeded to the city prison, an old and
loathsome building, where we examined two ranges of small stone
cells, in which were a large number of colored prisoners. We
noticed five or six in a single cell, barely large enough for a
solitary tenant, under a heat as intense as that of the tropics.
The keeper stated that in rainy seasons the prison was
uncomfortably wet. The place had to us a painful interest, from
the fact that here Dr. Crandall, a citizen of the free States,
was confined until his health was completely broken down, and
was finally released only to find a grave, for the crime of
having circulated a pamphlet on emancipation, written by one of
the friends who accompanied me.[A] On inquiry of the keeper, he
informed us that slaves were admitted into his cells, and kept
for their owners at the rate of thirty-four cents per day, and
that transfers of them from one master to another sometimes took
place during their confinement; thus corroborating the testimony
of the keeper of the private jail before mentioned, that this
city prison, the property of the people of the United States,
and for the rebuilding of which, a large sum of your money has
been appropriated, is made use of by the dealers in human beings
as a place of deposit and market; and thus you, in common with
your fellow citizens, are made indirect participators in a
traffic equal in atrocity to that foreign trade, the suppression
of which, to use the words of your President in his late
message, 'is required by the public honor, and the promptings of
humanity.
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