144 



ever the bill should be taken up, and further directing, 

 tliat thry should rontitiue with their i);ireuts to a cer- 

 tain age, then he f)rought up, at the public expense, to 

 tillajre, arts or sciences, according to their geniuses, till 

 the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty- 

 one years of age, when they should lie colonized to 

 such place as the circnrnsiances of the lirne should ren- 

 der most proper, sending them out with arms, imple- 

 ments of household and of the handiciaft arts, seeds, 

 pairs of the usetul dotnestic animals, &c. to declare 

 them a free aiul independent |)eople, and extend to 

 them our alliance and protection, till they have acquir- 

 ed strength ; and to send vessels at the same lime to 

 other parts of the world for an equal nufrd)er of white 

 inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate iiither, proper 

 encouragenicnts were to he proposed. Jt will probably 

 he asked, Why not retain and incorporate the l)lacks 

 into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying 

 by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they'will 

 leave? Deep r<;oted prejudices entertained by the 

 whites; ten thousand recollections,, by tlie blacks, of 

 the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; 

 the real distinctions which nature has tnade ; and niany 

 other circumstances, will divide us irito parties, and pro- 

 duce convulsions, which will prohahly never end but 



in the extermitration of the one or the other race. 



To these objections, which are political, may be added 

 others, which are physical ami moral. The'first differ- 

 ence which strikes us is that of c(dour. — Whether the 

 black of the negro resides in the reticular mend)rane 

 between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin it- 

 self; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, 

 l4ie colour of^the bile, or from that of soine other secre- 

 tion, the difference is fixed in natiu'e, and is as real as 

 if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is 

 this difference of no inqiortance ? Js it not the f(MU)da- 

 tion of a greater or less share .of beauty in the two 

 races? Are nut the fine mixtures of red and white, 

 the expressions of every passion by greater or less suf- 

 fusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal 



