CHAPTER XX.

THE SLAVE TRADE.

CONGRESS has enacted that the African slave trade shall be considered piracy as far as American citizens are concerned in it. It is to be hoped that the example set by the Americans in this particular, will be followed by the European governments, for surely piracy itself cannot be more wicked or barbarous. The only two governments which have hitherto manifested a sincere desire to prevent a continuance of that diabolical traffic are the English and American, both of which have used strong endeavours; and, as we see, the Americans have taken one step further than the English, by declaring the trade to be piracy. This does them credit. But while they have been laudably endeavouring to put an end to the African slave trade, what have they done to check the American slave trade? To understand what I mean by this, I must mention that thousands and tens of thousands of slaves are purchased in Maryland and Virginia for sale in Georgia, Louisiana and other States. Agents are stationed at Norfolk, Richmond,

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Baltimore, and other places, to attend to the purchase and shipment of these unfortunate creatures. Now though it must not be supposed that this trade is attended with all the horrors of the African slave trade, it is yet sufficiently cruel to demand the interference of the government. So long as it continues, all hopes of abolishing slavery are vain, and it increases the evils of it at least threefold. As Cowper says,

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Fleecy locks and black complexion

Cannot forfeit nature's claim:

Skins may differ, but affection

Dwells in white and black the same."

But in this trade, husbands are torn from their wives, (for marriage is sometimes strictly kept by the slaves,) brothers from their sisters, children from their parents. It is true that humane persons will not forcibly separate children from their parents at a very early age, nor sell a man and his wife without stipulating that they shall be employed on the same estate. But in the latter case, how can they expect that the conditions of the bargain will be observed in cases where it happens not to be convenient, except the other parties are as humane as themselves? Instances have occurred, though for the honour of the national character I trust very seldom, of the owners of slaves separating relations to gratify spleen,

and selling them to different persons from sheer malignancy. Ought a trade like this to be tolerated? The African slave trade was condemned in Congress as iniquitous. Its outrages on humanity were forcibly depicted. It was described as fit only for demons. And is the American slave trade fit for men? Oh! let the groans and tears of its miserable victims answer the question. If the crime of purchasing slaves in Africa for the purpose of transporting them across the Atlantic, is to be branded as piracy, and punished with death, what will mankind think of a government which sanctions the sale of slaves to a distance of two thousand miles from their dearest connexions? If it be unconstitutional for the Federal government to legislate on this matter, it is not for the State governments within their own limits. Not only should slave-owners be prohibited from selling their slaves out of the State, but out of the county to which they belong. The anomaly of condemning the African slave trade as piracy, and permitting the continuance of the American slave trade, without subjecting those concerned in it to either pains or penalties, cannot fail to strike the admirers and friends of America as a circumstance throwing suspicion over the motive which induced her to take the lead of Europe in affixing a new name to the former.

I believe that so long as slavery continues, some sale of slaves must necessarily be allowed.

propriety be confined By restrictive enactand horrors of this The world looks to

But it might with great within very narrow limits. ments, nearly all the evils trade may be removed. America to take the first, or at any rate the second station in the career of improvement. Here then is a subject deserving of her serious attention. May the hopes of mankind respecting her not be blasted, by a perseverance in a trade so repugnant to our best feelings, so demoralising in its tendency, so inimical to the national welfare.

There is one point of view to which I have not yet directed the attention of the reader. One part of the business of the agents of this traffic, is to search for and obtain handsome mulatto girls, to send them to New Orleans for the purpose of prostitution. What is the consequence? Why, by the unanimous accounts of all who have visited that city, it is the most profligate and licentious of any one in the United States. have been informed that chastity is as rare a virtue there, as honesty within the walls of Newgate.

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But of all the evils of this traffic, I cannot but

think that next to its cruelty, the most lamentable is its never-ceasing tendency to prevent the amelioration of the slaves so as to fit them for freedom. Many persons in Maryland and Virginia carry on the trade of rearing them for the southern and western markets, just as other persons rear cattle. Those two States have long ceased to import slaves, on which account it is, that the treatment of them is so mild as to leave no suspicion of danger of a revival of the severity formerly practised. But in Georgia and the other importing States far different is their lot. I speak not it is true from my own observation, not having been in those States, but the information I received was from witnesses entitled to credence. A very intelligent and amiable merchant in Baltimore related to me circumstances that had fallen under his immediate notice, too horrible and disgusting to commit to paper. Massachusetts sailor whom I had every reason to regard as a worthy fellow, gave me a similar recital. And I was confirmed in my belief of their accounts by the tone of some persons from Louisiana with whom I chanced to fall into company, when they were speaking of the slave population, which they seemed to consider hardly human. Now if the States which import slaves were prohibited from so doing, a kinder treat

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