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through his elaborate and interesting investigation of the question. whether the blacks and the Indians are inferior races of beings to the whites. Making all due allowances for the difference of condition, education, &c. between the blacks and whites, still the evidences were too strong, not to admit doubts of the intellectual equality of the two species. Of the former, many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance, have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, have lived in couutries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a high degree, and have had before their eyes, samples of the best workmanship. and of the noblest intelligence. "But never yet," he adds, "could I find a black that had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never seen even an elementary trait of painting or sculp· ture." Still, it was not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, might possess different qualifications. The Indians, on the other hand, with none of the advantages above named, will often carve figures on their pipes, not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds, which only wants cultivation. They will astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory, such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. On the whole, therefore, he advanced it as his opinion, that the Indians are equal to the whites, in body and mind; and as a problem only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made so by time and circumstances, are inferior to them. To justify a conclusion, in the latter case, required observations which eluded the research of all the senses; it should, therefore, be hazarded with extreme caution, especially when such conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings, which their Creator may, perhaps, have assigned them. The difference of color, feature, inclination, &c., is sufficient to warrant the presumption, that they were designed for a separate existence; but it furnishes no evidence of the right to enslave and torment them as mere brutes. "Will not a lover of natural history then," he concludes, "one who views the gradations in all the races of animals,

with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep these in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them ?"

The unhappy influence of slavery upon the manners and morals of the people, is forcibly portrayed in a succeeding chapter.

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitatative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies; destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him.”

The freedom of Mr. Jefferson's strictures on Slavery and the Constitution of Virginia, were the reasons, it appears, which influenced him to limit the circulation of the work, originally, to his confidential friends. In his letters to them, accompanying the gift of a copy, he uniformly explains the motives by which he was actuated, in enjoining suppression. Those who, on marking the singular anxiety of the Author throughout that affair, thought personal delicacy the principal restraining cause, had not yet arrived at the proper standard of estimating his principles of action. In presenting a copy of the work to General Chastellux, he thus writes:

"I have been honored with the receipt of your letter of the 2d instant, and am to thank you, as I do sincerely, for the partiality with which you receive the copy of the Notes on my country. As I can answer for the facts therein reported on my own observation,

and have admitted none on the report of others, which were not supported by evidence sufficient to command my own assent, I am not afraid that you should make any extracts you please for the Journal de Physique, which come within their plan of publication. The strictures on Slavery and on the Constitution of Virginia, are not of that kind, and they are the parts which I do not wish to have made public, at least, till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible, that in my own country, these strictures might produce an irritation, which would indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view; that is, the emancipation of their slaves, and the settlement of their constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis. If I learn from thence, that they will not produce that effect, I have printed and reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to every young man at the College. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations."

In transmitting copies to his friends in America, he expresses the same lofty reasons; of which the following, in a letter to Mr. Monroe, is a sample.

"I send you by Mr. Otto, a copy of my book. Be so good as to apologize to Mr. Thompson for my not sending him one by this conveyance. I could not burden Mr. Otto with more, on so long a road as that from here to L'Orient. I will send him one by a Mr. Williams, who will go ere long. I have taken measures to prevent its publication. My reason is, that I fear the terms in which I speak of slavery, and of our constitution, may produce an irritation, which will revolt the minds of our countrymen against reformation in these two articles, and thus do more harm than good. I have asked of Mr. Madison to sound this matter as far as he can, and if he thinks it will not produce that effect, I have then copies enough printed to give one to each of the young men at the College, and to my friends in the country."

The remainder of this justly renowned Treatise, is occupied with useful details and learned dissertations, under the following heads of enquiry: The Colleges, Public Establishments, and mode of Architecture in Virginia The measures taken with regard to the Estates and Possessions of tories during the war--The different Religions received into the State-The particular Mauners and Customs of the people-The present state of Manufactures, Commerce, and Agriculture-The usual commodities of Export and ImportThe Weights, Measures, and Currency in hard money, with the rates of Exchange with Europe-The public Income and Expenses-The Histories of the State, the Memorials published under its

name while a Colony, and a Chronological Catalogue of its State Papers since the commencement of the Revolution.

Perhaps the most celebrated portion of the whole work, is, that which contains the opinions of the Author on the subject of FREE ENQUIRY in matters of religion. The interest which all mankind feel on a point so vitally connected with the policy of our government, and the freedom and happiness of its subjects, will justify a liberal quotation here, in concluding our remarks upon these invaluable "Notes." The sentiments of the writer, although generally esteemed heretical and well nigh impious, at the time, are now as generally reputed orthodox and unquestionable.

"Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion, by bringing every false one to their tribunal, and to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the reformation, the corruptions of Christianity could not have been purged away. If it be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged. Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France, the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potatoe as an article of food. Government is just as infallible too when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere: the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. This error, however, at length prevailed, the earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axis by a vortex. The government in which he lived was wise enough to see, that this was no question of civil jurisdiction, or we should all have been involved by authority in vortices. In fact, the vortices have been exploded, and the Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step in, and make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the great men may beat the small, make us

all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? to make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess, probably, a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves."

On the 15th of June, 1781, Mr. Jefferson was appointed, with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay and Mr. Laurens, a Minister Plenipotentiary, for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected through the mediation of the Empress of Russia. The same reasons, however, which induced him to decline a foreign station in 776, constrained him, on the present occasion, to plead his excuse with Congress, and entreat permission to remain at home. "Such was the state of my family," says he, "that I could not leave it, nor could I expose it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the British ships, then covering the ocean." This delicate restraint released him from the meditated Embassy; and the negotiation in fact, was never entered on.

So imperfect is the light which has been thrown on the private history of Mr. Jefferson, that it was not thought proper to interrupt the narrative of his public career, for those general facts only, of a domestic character, which are incorporated in his recent auto-biogra phy. He was married on the first of January, 1772, to Mrs. Martha Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, then twenty-three years of age. She was the daughter of John Wayles, a lawyer of extensive practice, to which he had been introduced, more by his great industry, punctuality, and practical readiness, than by eminence in the science of his profession. He is represented to have been a most agreeable companion, full of pleasantry and good humor, which gave him a happy welcome into every society. He acquired