200 dollars, with great difficulty and trouble, as the owner insisted upon having 300. She had the children properly educated, and instructed to gain their own livelihood. The greater part of the purchase money was refunded by the objects of her bounty, when they were enabled to repay her. This account, which I had from her own lips, was confirmed to me by Mr. Curtis, of Crosby Street, a person of great respectability, and well known for his kind feelings towards the descendants of Africa. Most of the cases he himself knew to be as I had heard them: for the rest, he said, he would without hesitation vouch; as her word was as good as any other person's oath. When I was with her, she was teaching herself French. She was a woman of strong religious feelings and principles. By her own exertions, she had obtained a comfortable competency for herself; having been successful in discovering a new mode of coloring walls, by which, and the assistance of a shop, she had realised sufficient to provide for her own wants, and those of her less fortunate fellow creatures. Like all of her race, with whom I had any communication, she was deeply affected by the numerous humiliations to which she was exposed. She never for a moment doubted, she said, that the designs of Providence were wise and good. Yet it was mysterious and afflicting to think that whole nations and tribes should so long have been doomed to unmitigated and un

merited bondage; and when free, should still be subject to contempt and reproach. Her windows looked into the street, and it was most painful to her to witness the savage way in which the blacks were treated by the people, and by none worse than by the Irish; some of whom, not long before, would have murdered a man of color, if some persons, who were passing in a carriage at the time, had not assisted him to escape.

The American Quarterly Review upbraids the Spaniards of South America for pursuing, towards the Creoles, precisely the same conduct as its readers still observe towards men equally inoffensive, and equally entitled, with themselves, to a participation in political and personal rights. "Even as late as 1811," says the Reviewer, "they (the Creoles) were represented in the Cortez of Cadiz as a race of monkeys, full of vice and ignorance, and automata, unworthy of representing or being represented."The Hispano-Americans were perfectly justified in resenting the calumny: the Africo-Americans must submit without a murmur. The same journal, (for June 1830,) in describing the effects of Spanish pride in Mexico, draws a complete picture of a very large portion of the United States. "The settlers scorned to be placed on a level with the wretched Indian; their color ennobled them in their own opinion; and the poorest white man would have perished with want, rather than lose caste by working in the fields,

or by any other laborious occupation in which the Indians were habitually employed. Thus, then, was wanting that portion of a community which forms the strength of a nation-a hardy and virtuous peasantry."

When power had changed hands, these silly people were driven out of the country. Their neighbors might profit by the example, if it were possible for oppression to count the cost of its gratification; or if fatuity were not the necessary precursor of that destruction which tyranny brings with it, by blinding its instruments and emboldening its victims.

The overwhelming importance of this subject, was now beginning to force upon the public attention the deep impression it had made upon the minds of many who could think and feel like men. A meeting was held in Philadelphia, on the 4th of December, and continued by adjournment till the 6th, for the purpose of forming a national anti-slavery society. There were delegates from ten of the States to this convention; and the proceedings, I was told, (for illness prevented my attending,) were exceedingly solemn and affecting. Several who were present shed tears, and all were animated with one spirit of firmness and resolution. In the declaration of sentiments unanimously adopted on this memorable occasion, was the following: "We further believe and affirm, that all persons of color, who possess the

qualifications which are demanded of others, ought to be forthwith admitted to the enjoyment of the same privileges, and the exercise of the same prerogatives, as others; and that the paths of preferment, of wealth, and of intelligence, should be opened as widely to them, as to persons of a white complexion." The force of these expressions would hardly be felt in England. The unmanly prejudice against which they are aimed, is so deeply seated in the public mind, that its complete eradication is an indispensable preliminary to the abolition of slavery, which is as much the offspring of this feeling, as it is the parent of the slave trade. In striking at the latter, while we left the other in full vigor, we mistook the effect for the cause, and reversed the relation in which demand and supply stand to each other. By combining these two objects, the transatlantic philanthropists are proceeding towards their object in the most direct and the clearest path; for the negro will always be treated as a brute, till he is acknowledged to be a man.

CHAPTER XIV.

Law-suits. Arbitration.— Commercial Morality.-Greek Frigates.-Tricks of Trade.-Heroism of a black Boy.-Stagecoach Law.-Schoolboy claimed as Property.-Sympathy of African race.-Bordentown.-American Honesty. — Philadelphia.-Baltimore. — Whites purchased by Blacks. — Expatria

tion.

It has been said, that there are more law-suits in the United States than in England. There are some reasons why there should be less ;-at least, in New York and other northern States. By the laws of the former, disputes upon money matters may be settled by arbitration; the parties agreeing as to the mode of decision,-which may be put upon record, and become as binding as the judgement of a judicial court. The chamber of commerce, by reference to arbitrators chosen for the express purpose, and paid for their services by stated fees, or so much remuneration per day, (generally two dollars,) adjusts any difference that may arise among its members. The merchants have thus a choice of judges; and may bring disputed claims before a lay or a legal tribunal; the former being empowered, if the