and lungs. These carry off numbers of prime negroes, annually, which may be owing to their carelessnes and imprudence, and to their propensity to be out at nights, visiting the neighboring plantations.

"The foregoing remarks are principally applicable to the lower parts of South-Carolina and particularly to the Sea Islands. treatment of those in the interior and upper country differs no further, than that the animal food which they receive may be more liberal; the country affording more facilities in this respect. Upon the whole, I think it may be affirmed with the greatest truth that so intimately blended are the considerations of humanity and interest at the present day, that few laborers in any part of the world, work easier and have more comfort, and are, upon the whole, more contented than our black population."

We are obligated to the attention of ELIAS HORRY, Esq. for the communication which follows:

"With regard to the accommodation and general comfort of the slaves in this country, there is no question but that they enjoy a greater share of the blessings of life than falls to the lot of the laboring poor of most countries. Their dwellings, on my planta tion, are built in such a manner as to afford them every protection and comfort, and are generally about forty feet in length and twenty feet wide, with a double brick chimney in the centre that forms two tenements; each tenement has two rooms and a hall.

Their food consists of hominy, potatoes, peas, and small-rice, and is regularly given out to them every week. The waters of the Santee, upon which I live, abound with the finest fish, and all the grown Negroes, and many of the children, are supplied with fishhooks and lines by which they are enabled to get a regular supply of fish from the river.

In the summer season salted fish is occasionally given to them. Each grown Negro is allowed a small field, say from a quarter to a half acre of land, or more if he desirès it, which he plants, and the profits of which he appropriates exclusively to his own use. They are permitted to raise poultry of every description which they either sell to their master or send to market. In cases of sickness they have every medical attention necessary. Each plantation is supplied with medicines of every description; every attention is therefore paid to the sick, and as the diseases of our Negroes are of a simple nature it

is rarely necessary, except in cases where surgical aid is required, to send for a physician. There are nurses on every plantation, whose business it is to do nothing but attend to the sick and administer to their wants. In addition to which, in cases of severe illness, one or more of the family. to which the invalids may belong are permitted to wait upon them. The nurses are also supplied with sugar, tea, rum, molasses and vinegar for the use of the sick.

Their clothing consists of white plains, and they are also furnished with London duffil blankets of the best quality, a pair of shoes, and a Coromantal Scotch cap. The blankets are given out once every three years; and it often occurs from the nature of his work, that a laborer may require another pair of shoes, which is given to him. Every woman has an additional blanket at the birth of every child, as well as clothes for her infant.

Their labor is, comparatively, light and easy, so that an industrious negro can very easily accomplish his task early in the afternoon, and the rest of the time is at his own disposal. A quarter of an acre is generally called a task, but the actual task given depends very much upon the nature of the work. In digging land a quarter of an acre is always the task. In threshing rice the men thresh 600 sheaves, and the women 500, and never more. Those of my negroes who are mechanics labor in proportion, and if they are called upon to do any extra work, in their own time, they are regularly paid for it. In one instance I paid in one year to a carpenter belonging to me, $150, for the extra services of himself and two sons, in rearing the frames of five negro houses, I finding the stuff. Each driver, blacksmith and bricklayer, has, every other year, a great coat, in addition to his clothing; and the nurses have also a cloak every third year, independent of their clothes. The head of every family has a small garden allowed him, contiguous to his dwelling, independent of the little field I have mentioned, from which he gathers as many vegetables as supply his wants. They appear happy and contented, and the discipline used to keep them in proper order is by no means severe, but is always consistent with feelings the of justice and of humanity."

We might easily multiply the evidence upon this subject, but enough has been already produced to show the utter destitution of truth in the statements of those who have audaciously traduced us, and repre

sented our system of discipline with regard to our slaves in so false a light. The corresponding testimony of the gentlemen of whose communications we have availed ourselves, is as full and conclusive, as if we were to produce a volume. They are all of them Planters of liberal and enlightened minds-possessing large and independent fortunes-owning an immense number of slaves-and from their perfect knowledge of the general state and condition of that class of our population, eminently qualified to give us the best possible information.

If the negroes on our plantations live in the manner we have shewn, those immediately around our persons have still greater facilities of rendering themselves more happy and contented. Most of the latter are fed from the same table at which their masters dine, or are daily supplied with the greatest abundance of both animal and vegetable food-clothed in a superior manner-occupying rooms in the out buildings, as good nearly as those in the family mansion itself—and in every respect treated more like children than servants. They have no wants that are not immediately supplied. Independent of all this, they are allowed the privileges of moral and religious instruction, and every Church has a portion of its galleries set apart for their accommodation. Here they may resort and listen to the word of God, and partake, with their masters and mistresses, and under the same benedictions, of the Holy Sacra

ment.

The negroes in the interior of the State live equally well, and in some respects they are more upon a level with their masters. They work by the side of their owners while in the field, and we ourselves have

seen some of them in the upper districts sitting at the same table with them, using, at the same time, however, such circumspection as denoted their inferiority-just as the clansmen of the feudal ages sat at the social board of their high and bannered lord, yet preserved that distance of behaviour which the most boisterous hospitality could never make them forget. In the interior of the State the negroes are not allowanced in food, but have as much corn, potatoes and bacon, as they can possibly consume. The barns are open to all, and each takes what he requires. If it be asked why those in the lower country are allowanced, while those in the interior are not, the answer is, that, such are the facilities of transportation to market, and the disposition to thievery, so innate to the blacks, that a Planter's barn would in a very short time become bankrupt of its wealth, and the whole of his substance vanish like unsubstantial moonshine,

We have no reason to blush, therefore, either for the existence or toleration of NEGRO SLAVERY among us, nor need we dread any fair and candid comparison that may be made between their physical and moral comforts, and those of the laboring poor in England, or any other part of the World. Contrast their condition with that of the poor in England, the mother of our religion-the boasted land of freedom and of glory-and the pride of ancient and of modern Europe.

Mr. SOUTHEY, an Englishman, as much bigoted as any man who ever bent his knee to royalty, in speaking of the English poor, sums up the misery of their condition with the following climax of human wretchedness:

"To talk of English happiness is like talking of Spartan freedom. the Helots are overlooked. In no country can such riches be acquired by commerce, but it is the one who grows rich by the labor of the hundred. The hundred human beings like himself, as wonderfully fashioned by Nature, gifted with the like capacities and equally made for immortality, are sacrificed, body and soul. Horrible as it must needs appear, the assertion is true to the very letter. They are deprived in childhood of all instruction, and all enjoyment of the sports in which childhood instinctively indulges, of fresh air by day and of natural sleep by night. Their health, physical and moral, is alike destroyed. They die of diseases induced by unremitting task work, by confinement in the impure atmosphere of crouded rooms, by the particles of metallic or vegetable dust which they are continually inhaling, or they live to grow up without decency, without comfort, and without hope; without morals, without religion, and without shame; and bring forth SLAVES like themselves to tread in the same path of misery."

Such was the condition of the English poor, particularly of the manufactoring class, in the year 1807. Those who know any thing of their present state, are aware that their hopelessness and despair have rendered it ten thousand times worse. Of the miseries of the IRISH it would be a mockery of humanity to speak.

In summing up the arguments which we have adduced in the foregoing pages, we cannot but form, among others, the following conclusions. Melancholy and painful as some of them are in their character, they are, nevertheless, we think, clearly deducible from the propositions we have discussed

1-The United States are one for national purposes, but they are separate for their internal regulation and government-acknowledging and clinging to the Union as the common centre of attraction, they have still their appropriate and peculiar orbits, like the stars."*

CRAFTS' Oration on the Lunatic Asylum, p. 21.