626 
Mrs. Wright's Travels in the United Stales ', 
pendent state by mutual agreement be¬ 
tween lierself and Virginia, of which 
she originally formed a part. Tenessee, 
by mutual agreement between herself 
and Carolina, to which she was origi¬ 
nally attached. Mississippi was sur¬ 
rendered to the general government by 
Georgia, to be raised when old enough 
into an independent state ; but with a 
stipulation that to the citizens of Geor¬ 
gia should be continued the privilege 
of migrating into it with their slaves. 
Louisiana proper, formed out of a small 
portion of the vast territory ceded 
under that name, came into the posses¬ 
sion of the United States with the 
united evils of black slavery in its most 
hideous form, and the slave trade pro¬ 
secuted with relentless barbarity. The 
latter crime was instantly arrested; 
and under the improving influence of 
mild laws and mental instruction, the 
horrors of slavery have been greatly 
alleviated. 
In 1/S7« the congress passed aii act, 
establidiing a temporary government 
for the infant population settled on the 
lands of Ohio; and the government then 
established has served as the model of 
that of all the territories that have since 
been formed in the vacant wilderness. 
The act then passed contained a clause 
which operated upon the-whole national 
territory to the north-west of the Ohio. 
By this, 44 slavery and involuntary servi¬ 
tude'’ were positively excluded from 
this region, by a law of the general go¬ 
vernment. Ohio, Indiana,Illinois, and 
Michigan, have already sprung up in 
the bosom of this desert; the three 
first independent states, and the latter 
about to pass from her days of tutelage 
to assume the same character. 
Thus saved from the disgraceful and 
ruinous contagion of African servitude, 
this young family of republics have 
started in their career with a vigour and 
a purity of character that has not an 
equal in the history of the world. Ohio, 
which twenty-five years since was a 
vacant wilderness, now contains half a 
million of inhabitants, and returns six 
representatives to the national congress. 
In the other and younger members of 
the western family, the ratio of increase 
is similar. It is curious to consider, 
that the. adventurous settler is yet alive, 
who felled the first tree to the west of 
the Alleghanies. The log-hut of Daniel 
Boon is now on the wild shores of the 
Missouri, a host of firmly established 
republics stretching betwixt him and 
the habitation of his boyhood 
DANIEL BOON. 
Among others I mention, with plea¬ 
sure, that brave and adventurous North 
Carolinian, who makes so distinguished 
a figure in the hirffoiy of Kentucky, the 
venerable Col. Boon. This respectable 
old man, in the eighty-fifth year of his 
age, resides on Salt river, Up the Mis¬ 
souri. He is surrounded by about forty 
families, avIio respect him as a father, 
and who live under a kind of patri* 
archal government, ruled by his advice 
and example. They are not necessitous 
persons, who have fled for their crimes 
or misfortunes, like those that ga¬ 
thered unto David in the cave of Adul- 
him : they all live well, and possess the 
necessaries and comforts of life as they 
could wish. 
The Lord of the wilderness, Daniel 
Boon, though his eye is now somewhat 
dimmed, and his limbs enfeebled by a 
long life of adventure, can still hit the 
wild fowl on the wing with that dex¬ 
terity which, in his earlier years, ex- 
cited the envy of Indian hunters ; and 
he now looks upon the 44 famous river” 
Missouri with feelings scarce less ardent 
than when he surveyed with clearer 
vision, 44 the famous river Ohio.” The 
grave of this worshipper of nature, 
wild adventure, and unrestrained li¬ 
berty, will he visited by the feebler 
children of future venerations with 
o 
such awe as the Greeks might regard 
those of their earlier demigods. The 
mind of this singular man seems best 
pourtrayed by bis own simple words. 
44 No populous city, with all the varie¬ 
ties of commerce and stately structure, 
could afford so much pleasure to my 
mind as the beauties of nature that I 
find here.” 
LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
The Americans are certainly a calm, 
rational, civil, and well-behaved peo¬ 
ple ; not given to quarrel or to call each 
other names; and yet, if you were to 
look at their newspapers, you would 
think them a parcel of Hessian soldiers. 
An unrestricted press appears to he the 
safety-valve of tlieir free constitution ; 
and tiieyseem to understand this; for they 
no more regard all the noise and sputter 
that it occasions than the roaring of the 
vapour on hoard their steam-boats. 
Were a foreigner, immediately upon 
landing, to take up a newspaper, (es¬ 
pecially if he should chance to land 
just before an election,) he might sup¬ 
pose that the whole political machine 
was about to fall to pieces, and that he 
had just come in time to be crushed iii 
its 
