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exertion and privation; but the planters are very generally in debt, and are, therefore, compelled to activity, in order to preserve their estates in their own hands. Those who wish to lead an idle agricultural life, remove to the cultivated parts of the western country.

It is one of the inconveniences to which slaveproprietors are exposed, (especially where the range of the articles to which the climate is favourable is limited,) that they are constantly liable to a great extinction of capital by a reduction in the foreign market of the value of the articles they produce. The cost of production in that country which can supply the articles at the cheapest rate and in sufficient quantity, fixes the price to which all the others must conform. Now if that price be insufficient to remunerate the cultivator by free labour, he discontinues the cultivation, and dismisses his labourers. The cultivator by slave labour, on the contrary, being compelled still to maintain his slaves, continues also to employ them; but the value of the articles being reduced, the value of man, the machine which produces them, is depreciated nearly in the same proportion, and this depreciation may proceed so far, as to render the labour of a slave worth so little more than his maintenance, as to afford no recompence to his

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owner for care and superintendance. In the progress towards this state of things, manumissions would multiply rapidly, for they would cost little; experiments would be made favourable to the freedom of the Negro; many slaves would become free labourers, and slavery would verge towards its termination.

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Does not this view of the subject throw a gleam of hope over the dark picture? But it is not from free labour alone that the West India and American planters have much to fear. They have already most formidable competitors in those foreign colonies into which the importation of slaves is still admitted. But I will not pursue the subject. I will only add that the great revolutions which the natural course of events is silently effecting in the West, are calculated to rivet the attention both of the planter and of the philanthropist, and to inspire each of them with feelings of the most intense interest, though not a little differing in their complexion.

I must not forget to tell you, long as my letter is, that this place derives its name from the Natchez, a celebrated tribe of Indians, extinguished some time since with circumstances of peculiar cruelty. Dr. Robertson describes them as distinguished from the other southern

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tribes by hereditary rank, and the worship of the sun. The Choctaws, of whom there are nearly 20,000 in this State, often pay us a visit. A friend of mine who was present, lately mentioned to me a circumstance strongly indicative of the equivocal transitive nature of their present state. As soon as the warriors had assembled to meet the deputation from the Government of the United States, for the usual distribution of presents, &c. and all was prepared, the principal chief addressed the American agent, and said, "Well, I see every thing is ready;—I just take my little frolic for three days, and "then we proceed to business." The agent remonstrated sharply, observing, that he and his people had come a great way to meet the warriors in their own land, and that it would be extremely inconvenient to them to be detained; that if he was determined to have a frolic, he had better wait till the distribution was over, and then he might frolic as long as he chose. The chief replied, that pleasure was no pleasure, unless a man might have it at his own time and in his own way;-that if they were distributing whiskey or dollars, he could not trust his people, and would keep as sober as any body; but the implements of husbandry were safe, and a frolic he would have. He then drank furiously of

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whiskey, and remained in a state of brutal intoxication for three days; after which he camè out, to use my friend's expression, as bright as a dollar, and proceeded to business, with an alertness and sagacity, to all appearance, unimpaired by his excesses.-I have not mentioned, that in consequence of the fever last year, more than half of the families seem to be in mourning; and instances have been stated to me of great generosity on the part of the planters towards those whom the ravages of death have deprived of their natural protectors, and left orphans and destitute.

We hope to set out in a few days on horseback, through the Indian country, to Richmond, in Virginia.

Letter XEE.

Missionary Settlement of Elliot, in the Yaloo Busha.
In the Indian Nation of the Choctaws,

19th May, 1820.

My last letter was from Natchez, of the 8th instant. The same day I went to visit a very pleasant family, residing eight miles from Natchez, the family of the late Mr. W. D. He was, I believe, the son of Sir A. D—————, of T-, in Scotland; and coming to this country in early life, he accumulated a large fortune, by judicious cotton planting. With the superiority of the cotton from his plantation, our English cotton-spinners are well acquainted. He also made considerable literary acquirements; and was denominated by Mr. Jefferson, the philosopher of the woods. His widow lives in a very handsome house, in the middle of the woods, near the centre of their cotton plantations; and her eldest son, who studied medicine in the North, that he might practise gratuitously among the Negroes of the various branches of the family, lives with her. His wife is a young lady from the neighbourhood of Philadelphia;

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