observer. While the latter are riveting the chains of slavery, the former are concerting measures for the total abolition of the slave-trade. Impor tant, useful lesson to the republicans of the southern states! an example that speaks louder than words. After such a precedent, can the Carolinian legislators refuse, hesitate, or delay to repeal their late law, which is so dishonourable to themselves, and has excited so much disgust in all the states? Certainly not. May the influence of the American constitution, so friendly to liberty, break asunder the chain, and annihilate the power of despotism and tyranny! Speedily may it be proclaimed to the imported Africans, and all others, when they set their feet on the American shore, that the land on which they begin to tread, is an asylum for the oppressed of every country and complexion, and consecrated to liberty! May America be inhabited by freemen alone! May slavery be known in it no more for ever! If neither mercy, nor honour, nor equity will stimulate the Americans to abolish slavery, let good policy, the example of the British Parliament, and the fate of St. Domingo do it-the fate of St. Do

ed in guilded capitals on their sign-posts and military standards; struck dumb with astonishment, I am constrained to lay down my pen, and wonder at their complicated villainy and hypocritical pretensions.

mingo, written in capitals with the blood of thousands, once advocates and supporters of slavery.}. America countenance slavery! what a striking proof of the inconsistency and corruption which attend the best governments on earth! Do you see the conduct of an individual glaringly inconsistent, and are you not, of course, afraid to place confidence in him? If the northern states withdraw the confidence they used to place in the southern, who can wonder? Has not an individual often entailed disgrace on a family?* Has not a part of a nation disgraced the whole? Could we reckon either our persons or property safe in the power or at the disposal of men, who, one day, declare all men free, and the next day pronounce many of them slaves? Have not the legislators of South Carolina discovered a degree of duplicity and instability, that is disgraceful to men, not to say legislators? Is there not too much reason to think, that such legislators, if they could with impunity, would enslave white men, as soon! as black? Do not such men give occasion to think that they have a secret inclination, if circumstan

* The deleterious conduct of Paris, in forcing Helen from her Grecian husband, was the primary cause of the Trojan war, and the fall of Troy. The cruelty of certain individuals of the tribe of Benjamin, to the Levite's concubine, facilitated the almost to-. tal destruction of that tribe.

ces favoured, to subvert the foundations of civil society and human happiness, and commit every outrage? And that it is the fear, not the love, of either God or man, by which they are restrained?* Is industry a source of wealth to a nation? Slavery must be the grand empoverisher of it. The reason is manifest. It is an encouragement to idleness. Does virtue consolidate and strengthen a nation? Slavery, and its concomitant vices, must enervate, if not subvert it. How shamefully slavery exposes and endangers the virtue of females, I forbear to say; delicacy† would shudder at the recital. But such glaring evils call aloud for a speedy and effectual remedy. I hope Congress, in their wisdom and zeal for the safety and happiness of the nation, will soon devise means for the speedy abolition of the slave-trade, and gradual emancipation of slaves, with all convenient speed. An important step, that admits of no delay, is the instruction of the slaves. For this salutary purpose, schools ought immediately

*The advocates of slavery should be noticed by the friends of liberty with a wary eye. If ever intestine commotions originate in America, which Heaven forbid, I think, and I tremble at the thought, that it will originate exclusively among them.

f It is evident to me, that the lady who, from principle or practice, is an advocate for slavery, cannot be a votary or a friend to chastity.

to be erected, and supported at the expence of the public. Slaves, if well treated, would continue in the employ of their masters; and, holding a rank as men in society, and receiving an equivalent reward for their services, would labour with alacrity and fidelity; and, instead of losers, their masters would be great gainers. The experiment has been made, and has turned out exactly as I have said. Ask any man in the northern states, who has emancipated, and now pays wages to his slaves. He will tell you, at once, he has gained greatly by their emancipation and education. One of these now, is better than two formerly were. The slaves emancipated, their children will be born free, and educated as men and Christians. Happy change!

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By such judicious measures, the most beneficial good may be effected, and the most calamitous evils avoided. But, without cogent measures, the body politic must one day feel what I shudder even to think; for, as slavery began with a vengeance, as it has been continued with a vengeance to thousands of mariners annually destroyed in the slave-trade, by the cruelty of their captains, the inclemency of the climate, and by the Africans raising upon them to regain their liberty, it will assuredly end (as in St. Domingo)

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with a vengeance. To expect any thing better, is to expect that God will alter the course of nature, and perform a prodigy, to save the traitors. and tyrants of mankind. But, in order to illustrate this topic, we will transcribe an observation made by the greatest statesman and philosopher in America, who cannot be supposed to be prejudiced in favour of the African race:"I tremble," says he, "I tremble for my country, when I remember that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever; and that an exchange of circumstances is among probable

events.

The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a conflict." Judicious, candid observation. The reasonableness and truth of which is as clear to me as a ray light as plain as A, B, C; and they must be rogues or fools that will not see it.

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