SOUTH CAROLINA AND ITS SLAVE POPULATION. 297 



lation the severity of the slave-laws of the state had, in consequence, 

 been much relaxed. Since this period, however, the most rigorous 

 enactments have been passed and enforced. Upon the ringing of a 

 bell, at an early hour in the night, no negro can be seen in the streets, 

 under pain of the severest punishment. All free negroes from the 

 northern states are precluded from entering the limits of the state ; 

 and even the black cooks and stewards of vessels entering the port, 

 are immediately conveyed to gaol. The punishment of death is 

 awarded to any white man who shall distribute inflammatory papers 

 amongst the negro population ; and all strangers are watched with a 

 jealousy uncomfortable to a traveller, who, by the bye, is disgusted 

 at seeing young women milliners or domestic servants of a com- 

 plexion not darker than that of an European brunette, exposed in the 

 market^ and sold by the hammer. 



All this severity cannot extinguish the smouldering flames of negro 

 rage and revenge. Unceasing agitation prevails in the city ; fires are 

 perpetually blazing in the night ; and, upon the ringing of the bell, 

 the assembling of troops, guards, and armed citizens, both horse and 

 foot, betrays the general alarm. Every thing gives note of an early 

 and sanguinary struggle ; and both residents and strangers evidently 

 live in apprehension of the " business that walketh about in the 

 dark." That the black population are watching, with the eye of the 

 tiger, the political dissentions of the times, is universally believed. 

 Upon the 4th of July, 1831, the writer was present at the celebration 

 of the anniversary of American Independence, in the city of Charls- 

 ton, when it was generally rumoured that an extensive subterranean 

 excavation towards the guard-house, and a plan for surrounding the 

 churches during the delivery of the orations, had been discovered a 

 very few days before. Numbers of the slaves are well-educated 

 men, hired out as clerks in warehouses and stores, and well informed 

 of the events that are passing in the world. Upon the trial of the 

 conspirators, in 1823, it appeared that the leaders were supplied with 

 pamphlets, books, and newspapers, treating of the progress of the 

 question of slavery in the northern states, and in the parliament of 

 England, and a speech of Mr. King, a member of congress from the 

 state of Massachussets, was in the hands of the mass of the slave po- 

 pulation. That so enlightened a multitude can long remain en- 

 slaved, is not to be supposed. When the projected insurrection of 

 1823 is known to have been communicated to more than fifty thou- 

 sand of the slaves, and that more than two years had been consumed 

 in preparation, and yet that the affair was only discovered upon the 

 eve of its irruption, it is apparent what awful unanimity prevails 

 among the conspirators. 



To liberate the negro population would evidently be a most pro- 

 fitable policy for these southern states. The cost of slavery is im- 

 mense. The expences of overseers, guards, troops, and gaols, weigh 

 upon the fortunes of the planters, and prove that, under a republic, 

 the press of taxation may be greater than under the most expensive 

 monarchy. " The depredations of the slaves," says Mr. Coltsworth 

 Pinkney, " amount to a third part of the entire crop of rice :" and 

 assuredly, the loss by incendiary fires amounts to many millions of 



M.M. No. 87. 2 H 



