1830.] United States of America, and British West Indies. 533 



the northern districts above alluded to is to rear as many negroes as 

 possible, since they are quite sure of a favourable market for them, so 

 long as the crowds of fresh inhabitants in the new states of the south, 

 who are daily bringing more capital, industry, high hopes and great 

 determination, to bear upon the virgin soil of those regions, are increas- 

 ing in their demands for more labourers" * This great internal slave 

 trade is carried on by sea as well as by land. " I saw a brig from Bal- 

 timore, lying alongside of the Levee at New Orleans, with upwards of 

 two hundred negroes on board. Her decks presented a scene which 

 forcibly reminded me of Rio Janeiro. In the one case, however, the 

 slaves were brought from the savage regions of Africa ; in the other, 

 from the very heart of a free country. To the poor negro the distinction 

 is probably no great matter !" We imagine that the distinction would, 

 on a more close examination, be found much in favour of the native Afri- 

 can. To those ' ' bad subjects of barbarous states, enslaved for their 

 crimes" mentioned by Mr. Kenneth Macauley, and to the " criminals" 

 who, according to Lander and other African travellers, are generally sent 

 to the coast for sale to the slave traders, the change would be a commuta- 

 tion of punishment only ; but to the American-born negro the transfer 

 to a distant and unhealthy part of the country may be viewed under a 

 very different aspect. 



At Savannah, Capt. Hall had an opportunity of acquiring much informa- 

 tion on the condition of the slaves in Georgia. Pulmonary complaints 

 there prove very fatal to the negroes, especially to such as cultivate the 

 rice grounds. On the cotton plantations, the negroes are generally 

 healthy, all the work being of a dry kind ; but on rice estates the hos- 

 pitals are often quite crowded in autumn. " This sickness is brought 

 on chiefly by circumstances inevitably connected with the cultivation of 

 rice j the negroes being almost constantly working in the water, or ancle- 

 deep in mud, ditching, drawing, or weeding, or turning over wet ground." 

 Bad usage is too often added to their other misfortunes ; and what is 

 very remarkable here, the absence of generous principles is most fre- 

 quently found amongst those who, on their first arrival, have had least 

 patience with slavery under any modification ! ( ' People who are incon- 

 siderate enough," says Captain Hall, " to abuse a whole system, without 

 taking the pains to distinguish between what is inevitable and what is 

 remediable, are not likely to be more reflecting when these distinctions 

 become apparent." Various facts seem to confirm the truth of this ob- 

 servation ; especially the conduct of our own operative philanthropists at 

 Sierra Leone, and also at Berbice, when the government estates in the 

 latter colony were unfortunately under their charge ! 



The laws of the different states of America relating to slavery have 

 been published by the anti-slavery party at Philadelphia, and are more 

 inconsistent with the principles so much cried up in that republic than 

 can well be conceived : but really, observes Capt. Hall, " nothing is to 

 be made out from the written laws j since, under any system of legislative 

 arrangement in America, as far as I could learn, the negroes must, in 

 every case, be left almost entirely to the control of their masters, or with 

 no appeal that deserves the name."f 



The impossibility of enforcing measures of amelioration, except with 

 consent of the masters, is very forcibly stated. " Congress has not, by the 



* Hall's Travels, vol. iii. pp. 197, 198. 

 t Hall's Travels, vol. iii. p. 208. 



