SOUTH CAROLINA 221 



in regard to the negro.* It is sufficient proof of the 

 bad situation in which these creatures find themselves 

 here that they do not multiply in the same proportion 

 as the white inhabitants, although the climate is more 

 natural to them and agrees with them better. Their 

 numbers must be continually kept up by fresh impor- 

 tations ; to be sure, the constant taking up of new 

 land requires more and more working hands, and the 

 pretended necessity of bringing in additional slaves is 

 thus warranted in part ; but close investigation makes 

 it certain that the increase of the blacks in the northern 

 states, where they are handled more gently, is vastly 

 more considerable. The gentlemen in the country 

 have among their negroes, as the Russian nobility 

 among their serfs, the most necessary handicraftsmen, 

 cobblers, tailors, carpenters, smiths, and the like, whose 

 work they command at the smallest possible price, or 

 for nothing almost. There is hardly any trade or craft 

 which has not been learned and is not carried on by 

 negroes, partly free, partly slave ; the latter are hired 

 out by their owners for day's wages. Charleston 

 swarms with blacks, mulattoes, and mestizos ; their 

 number greatly exceeds that of the whites, but they 

 are kept under strict order and discipline, and the 

 police has a watchful eye upon them. There may 

 nowhere assemble together more than 7 male negro 

 slaves; their dances and other assemblies must stop at 

 10 o'clock in the evening ; without permission of their 



* At Charleston a company has been formed for carrying 

 on the slave-trade to the coast of Africa, and in the space of 

 two years since the peace-proposals, some 3000 blacks (to the 

 great vexation of the other states) have been openly brought 

 to this market and sold. 



