Having had the pleasure of hearing your interesting and valuable Lectures on slavery, I take the liberty of sending you a few facts, collected from various sources, which I noted down in consequence of the following remark, which peculiarly arrested my attention. ‘If the Bible sanctions slavery, why does not the God of the Bible sanction it?' In other words, if slavery is agreeable to the revealed will of God, why are not the dispensations of his providence in accordance with that will? Could it be fairly proved that slavery is in accordance with the will of God, it must necessarily follow that obedience to his will is not only highly advantageous but perfectly safe; for surely no Christian can for a moment believe that the providence of God ever militates with the precepts of his word. As, however, the consequences of slavery have been, in all cases, when not averted by timely repentance, disastrous in the extreme, it is therefore undeniably evident that slavery is in direct opposition to the revealed will of God, and consequently that those who so violently oppose the abolition of slavery, for fear of supposed dangerous consequences, may truly be said to know not what they do. The truth on this subject is so plain, and the facts so abundant, that he who runs may read, and know, to a certainty, the entire safety of immediate

emancipation, that danger arises solely from liberty withheld, and, not from liberty granted. The general opinion seems to be, that the moment you 'proclaim liberty to the captive' and make the slave a freeman, be the conditions and restrictions what they may, that moment you make him a vagabond, a thief and a murderer, whom nothing will satisfy but the blood of those, who had been so fanatical and insane' as to treat him like a human being. Whence this opinion is derived no one can tell; for it is in direct opposition to reason, common sense, the nature of the human mind, and is entirely unsustained by facts. Indeed, so far as the evidence of facts is concerned, the advocates of immediate abolition have a complete monopoly. All experience proves two things, viz. the entire safety of immediate emancipation, and that all danger has arisen from its indefinite postponement; for this is really the true definition of the phrase 'gradual emancipation.'

We all know the results of slavery in Greece and Rome. Troy perished by her slaves in a single night, and as like causes always produce like effects, our obligations to our slaveholding brethren imperiously demand that we should urge upon them, in the most earnest manner, the duty of immediately abolishing slavery as their only hope of safety-the only means, by which they can escape the just judgments of God. In our exemption from slavery at the North, we have no cause of boasting, but rather of deep humiliation. We are all involved in the guilt, and must share in the punishment, unless timely and thorough repentance avert the impending blow. To do this effectually, information must be spread, the spirit of inquiry aroused, the temple of God be purified, and 'the book of the law be found and read in the ears of all the people,' that thus the gross mistakes and misapprehensions, which exist on the subject of slavery and its abolition, may be corrected.

Of these mistakes, none is more prevalent or more dangerous than the one just mentioned, that insurrection, rapine and bloodshed, are the necessary result of

immediate emancipation, and that the only way to avert the evils and the curse of slavery, is to continue in the sin for the present, promise future repentance, and in the mean time, whilst we are preparing to get ready to begin to repent, do every thing that in us lies to extinguish every good feeling, and cultivate and bring into action every bad feeling of the human heart. That such is the belief and consequent practice to an alarming extent throughout our country, and that such a course is as impolitic as it is wicked, and as dangerous as it is unjust, facts abundantly show.

How the consequences of abolishing slavery would be dreadful and terrible, neither history nor experience informs us. Let us, however, see what they tell us of the consequences of holding men in bondage. In every instance, which has fallen under my notice, insurrections have always been projected and carried on by slaves, for the purpose of obtaining their liberty, and never by the free blacks. In the speech of Gov. Gibbes to the Legislature of South Carolina, delivered May 15, 1711, is the following:

And, Gentlemen, I desire you will consider the great quantities of negroes that are daily brought into the government, and the small number of whites that comes amongst us; how insolent and mischievous the negroes are become, and to consider the negro act already made, doth not reach up to some of the crimes they have lately been guilty of, therefore it might be convenient, by some additional clause of said Negro Act, to appoint either by gibbets or some such like way, that after executed, they may remain more exemplary than any punishment that hitherto hath been inflicted on them.'

Whether the Legislature of South Carolina prepared the 'more exemplary' remedy recommended by the Governor, and thus aggravated the disease it was intended to cure, or not, I have no means of ascertaining; but in June of the same year, the Governor thus writes: 'We further recommend unto you the repairs of the fortifications about Charleston, and the amending of the

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Negro Act, who are of late grown to that height of impudence, that there is scarce a day passes without some robbery or insolence, committed by them in one part or other of this province.'

Early in the year 1712,' says the Rev. D. Humphreys, 'a considerable number of negroes of the Carmantee and Papa nations, residing in New York, formed a plot to destroy all the English, in order to obtain their liberty, and kept their conspiracy so secret that there was no suspicion of it, till it came to the very execution, which was in April. The plot was this. On a Sabbath evening about sunset, the negroes set fire to a house in the city, which greatly alarmed the people, who ran from all parts to it. The conspirators planted themselves in the several streets and lanes leading to the fire, and shot or stabbed the people as they were running to it. Some of the wounded escaped and informed the Government, and presently, by the signal of firing a great gun from the fort, the inhabitants were called under arms and prevented from running to the fire. A body of men was soon raised, which soon scattered the negroes; they had killed about eight persons, and wounded twelve more. In their flight some of them shot themselves; others, their wives, and then themselves; some absconded a few days, and then killed themselves for fear of being taken. Many, however, were apprehended and eighteen suffered death.' From the Weekly Journal, April 8, 1734, I make the following extract:

'Every reasonable man ought to remember their first villanous attempt at New York, and how many good innocent people were murdered by them, and had it not been for the Garrison there, that City would have been reduced to ashes, and the greatest part of the inhabitants murdered.'*

On the 6th of May, 1720, the negroes in South Carolina, murdered Mr. Benjamin Cottle, a white woman

# May the assertion be again verified, and the soldiers of another GARRISON, armed with weapons of ethereal temper, and the panoply of truth and justice, save not only New York, but the whole country from impending ruin.

and a negro boy. Forces were immediately raised and sent after them, 23 of whom were taken, 6 convicted, 3 executed, and 3 escaped.

In October, 1722, about 200 negroes near the mouth of Rastahanock river, Va., got together in a body armed, with an intent to fall on the people in church, but were discovered and fled, and only 5 were taken.

From the New England Courant of November, 1724, I take the following extracts:

'It is well known what loss the town of Boston sustained by fire not long since, when almost every night for a considerable time together, some building or other, and sometimes several in the same night were either burnt to the ground, or some attempts made to do it. It is likewise known that these villanies were carried on by Negro servants, [slaves]—the like whereof we never felt before from unruly servants, nor ever heard of the like happening to any place, attended with the same circumstances.'

So great at that time were the alarm and danger, that in addition to the common watch, a military was not only kept up, but at the breaking out of every fire a part of the militia were ordered out under arms to keep the slaves in order!! Now to a thinking man the inquiry would naturally arise, what caused the peculiar 'villany' of the blacks in 1724! Let him examine the Boston records of April, 1723, he will find a most 'villanous' 'Negro Act' in fifteen sections, the last of which is as follows:

'That no Indian, negro, or mulatto, upon the breaking out of fire and the continuance thereof during the night season, shall depart from his or her master's house, nor be found in the streets at or near the place where the fire is, upon pain of being forthwith seized and sent to the common gaol, and afterwards whipt three days following, before dismissed,' &c.

Now will any reflecting mind doubt that the crimes of 1724 were principally caused by their very prohibition? The first settlers of this country prohibited certain unmentionable crimes by severe laws, which, how