Chapter VII: Part 7

"All parts of the United States between thirty-seven and
forty-four degrees of north latitude will produce wheat. But
that part of the country best adapted to furnish an abundant
supply is, beyond all question, the northern part of the
Mississippi valley, and the contiguous country south of the
great lakes. It has been styled _par excellence_ the
wheat-growing region of America. Within its limits lie the six
north-western States of the American Union, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Wiskonsan (including as States the
two territories of Iowa and Wiskonsan, about to be admitted into
the Union.) These States, exclusive of two hundred thousand
square miles, the title to which is yet mostly in the Indian
tribes, cover an area of two hundred and thirty-six thousand and
eleven square miles. The country is, generally, an undulating
prairie, interspersed with groves of trees, and unbroken by hill
or mountain. The soil commonly rests upon a strata of limestone,
is fertile beyond description, and abundantly watered by the
finest springs and streams. Its climate is clear and salubrious,
and the country as well calculated as any other on the globe to
minister to the support and happiness of civilized man. As
already explained, for an inland country, it possesses
unequalled facilities for foreign intercourse and commerce, by
means of its great lakes and rivers. The most distant parts of
it are now reached in twenty days from Liverpool. The energies
of the American people have been chiefly expended, during the
last few years, in opening and taking possession of this region,
which they consider destined to become the future seat of
American wealth and greatness.

"Wheat once formed a leading article in the exports of the
United States. The trade of that country with Great Britain was
then double the present amount in proportion to the number of
the population. Had the trade of the two countries continued
free, it would have increased with the increase of population
and capital. The legitimate exchange trade has decreased between
England and America for thirty years. What part has the
restrictive system had in producing this result? A few facts may
enable us not only to answer this question, but to anticipate
the consequences of a continuance of the same policy. From the
time of the revolutionary war in America until 1812, the trade
between the two countries regularly increased with the increase
of the population. The average annual consumption of foreign
merchandise in the United States for each inhabitant was,

From 1790 to 1800, 39s. 4d.
" 1800 to 1810, 41s. 8d.

"In 1812 came the second American war, and in 1815 the British
corn law, which was promptly followed by the high American
tariff of 1816. For ten years prior to 1830, the annual average
consumption of merchandize had fallen to 22s. 6d., while the
population of the States was nearly double, and their capital
treble that of the ten years preceding 1810. Soon after 1830
followed the modification of the American tariff, and the
importations based on the great transatlantic loans of that
period. But, notwithstanding the stimulation and extravagance of
the time, the average annual consumption amounted to only 31s.
per head of foreign produce during the ten years prior to 1840.
Abating the importation based on the loans of the last few
years, and the trade of England with the United States has not
increased in amount for the last thirty years, while the
population of England has increased from eighteen to
twenty-seven millions, and that of the States from seven to
seventeen millions.

"Let the reader observe this, that in the Eastern States, in
that of Massachusetts, for instance, in which State Boston is
situated, the people bring a large part of their food from the
Western States, where they obtain it in exchange for their
manufactures. If free trade were allowed, is it possible for any
man to give a reason why the manufacturer and laborer of
Manchester would not be able to do as well as the manufacturer
and laborer of Boston now does, abating the difference of
transporting goods and grain across the Atlantic? At least, the
consequence would be an extension of trade, and employment equal
to the amount of food which would, in such case, be brought from
America; and the limit to this quantity will be found only when
the wants of Englishmen are supplied, and their ability to pay
exhausted. The ability of America to supply any required
quantity of food has already been shown. There lie the broad
lands, ready for cultivation as soon as there shall be a demand
for the produce. And if seventeen millions of people, sent
chiefly from England, or descended from those who have been
sent, are not sufficient to raise the requisite quantity of
provisions demanded of them by those who remain in the parent
country, then let more be sent, for the land lies equally open
to the people of all nations.

"Then, as to the ability of Englishmen to pay for all they want,
let us ask, what those who produce the food, or those who bring
it, can want in exchange that England cannot furnish? Gold, it
is said.[A] But for what do they want gold but to purchase other
supplies than food? and as they would then have the means to
pay, England would be the very country which, of all others,
could supply them to advantage. Whatever was wanted which her
own artizans do not produce themselves, they could still supply.
Englishmen would not at all be confined to a direct sale or
exchange of their goods with the wheat grower, but can give him
the merchandize of India and China, and the fruits of the
tropics, for which English manufactures would pay. If the idle
mills and idle laborers of England could at once be set at work
to produce food for the people, new activity would be imparted
to trade in every part of the world--from India to the frozen
regions of Greenland and Labrador. But, on the other hand, how
is it possible for England to extend her foreign trade while the
present restrictions continue? Even with such a country as
India, reduced under British sway, it cannot be done except by
diminishing the commerce with other countries to the same
extent. England cannot, in her present condition, greatly
increase her consumption of such merchandize as India can
furnish, or dispose of such merchandize abroad, to any great
extent, for the reasons already given.

[Footnote A: "Englishmen, reasoning from a restricted course of
trade, are constantly prone to the belief that the purchase of
foreign corn, from some unexplained necessity, must take away
their gold. Americans, from the same cause, reason in the same
manner respecting the purchase of foreign goods. Under the
action of the restrictive system, there may be some truth in the
reasonings of each party, but they certainly form a beautiful
running commentary upon each other."]

"As to any proposed gain by the Colonial trade, it is the very
thing rejected by the restrictions on the trade with the United
States. What are these States but the greatest colonies ever
planted by Great Britain? and their independence does not at all
prevent England from deriving all the advantage from them ever
to be derived from colonies. The only good which England can
derive from her extensive colonization is not to be gained by
swaying a barren sceptre over distant colonies, but by spreading
abroad her race, her language, her civilization, and thus
enlarging the sphere of her commerce. Under a free system of
intercourse England would not derive less benefit, at present,
from the United States than if they had remained a part of the
British dominions, for if trade were free, they would not trade
the less because of their independence, or furnish less food, or
at higher prices. England, however, seems determined to
sacrifice all the advantages which naturally accrue to her from
having colonized the finest part of the New World, and to refuse
the abundance and relief thus providentially prepared by her own
offspring."

The great importance of these extracts is the best apology for
their length--but there is yet another branch of the subject. A
country whose population is beyond its means of supply from its
own soil, has no resources but that of her manufactures and
foreign trade; if these be dried up, her people must emigrate or
starve. But the United States has an alternative;--her first and
best resource,--and the most profitable application of her
industry is in her broad and fertile lands, the superabundant
produce of which would not only feed, but, by exchange, clothe
her population, and supply them with all the comforts of
civilized life. She cannot avail herself of this to its full
extent without our aid. But, if we refuse to trade on equal
terms, her wants will not, therefore, go unsupplied. She can
manufacture for herself--her resources for manufactures and
commerce are, at least, equal to our own, with the exception of
capital and population, which the lapse of a few more years will
supply.

"The present may justly be considered a crisis in the commercial
policy of America. If it be decided that foreign markets are to
continue closed against American corn--if England, which is the
principal corn market of the world, refuse to exchange the
produce of her mills and workshops for that of the fields of the
Americans, they have no other alternative than to erect mills
and workshops from which to supply themselves. The effect of
such a course would prove decisive on the trade with England,
and go far to complete the ruin so effectually begun by the
British corn law and corresponding restrictions. If forced from
employment on the land, which an abundant and fertile soil has
naturally made their most profitable one, it will be found that
the Americans lack neither the talent, the energy, nor the
means, at once to extend their present manufactures to the full
supply of their own wants. They have water-power, coal, and
iron, in greater natural abundance and perfection than any other
part of the world."[A]

[Footnote A: "The United States are computed to contain not less
than eighty thousand square miles of coal, or sixteen times as
much as Europe. One of these coal fields extends nine hundred
miles in length. The State of Pennsylvania has ten thousand
square miles of coal and iron. Great Britain and Ireland have
two thousand. All the north-western States of America contain
large quantities of coal. The coal strata of the States
generally lie above the level of the streams, and the coal is
taken from the hill sides. The beds of coal and iron are to a
great extent contiguous."]

This is not mere theory. The developement is actually begun:

"A few years since, the country smiths, and the matrons with
their daughters at the household wheel and loom, were the
principal manufacturers of America. Now the cotton mills alone
are computed at one thousand, and the capital invested in
manufacturing machinery at £23,500,000. The estimated value of
some of the principal articles of manufacture is as follows:

Woollens, £15,750,000
Cotton, 11,250,000
Leather, 9,000,000
Hats and Caps, 3,575,000
Linen, 1,350,000
Paper, 1,350,000
Glass, 1,125,000
Iron and Steel, 11,250,000

"Some idea of the rapidity with which the American manufactures
are now capable of being extended, may be formed from the past
progress of the cotton manufacture. The consumption of raw
cotton was,

In 1833, 196,000 bales.
1835, 236,700 "
1837, 246,000 "
1839, 276,000 "

"The United States already supply two-thirds of their own
consumption of cottons. At the above rate of increase--of nearly
fifty per cent, in five years--America will much more than
supply its own market in five years to come. Never has the
manufacturing interest of the United States been in as
prosperous and sound a condition as at present. They need no
high tariff to protect them against British competition. _The
English corn law is their best protection_."

It is the restrictive policy of Great Britain that has called into existence Lowell and the manufacturing cities of the United States, producing an immense amount of articles which were once the sole products of British industry and skill. If the same policy is continued, the prosperity of the United States will be impeded, but that of England will be destroyed.

The following is an extract from the memorial of Joshua Leavitt to Congress, on the wheat interests of the North Western States:

"Should it, indeed, come to be settled that there is to be no
foreign market for these products, the fine country under
contemplation is not, therefore, to be despaired of. Let the
necessity once become apparent, and there will be but one mind
among the people of the North-west. The same patriotism which
carried our fathers through the self-denying non-importation
agreements of the revolution, will produce a fixed determination
to build up a home market, at every sacrifice. And it can be
done. What has been done already in the way of manufactures,
shows that it can be done. The recent application of the
hot-blast with anthracite coal to the making of iron, and the
discovery of a mine of natural steel, would be auxiliaries of
immense value. We could draw to our factories the best workmen
of Europe, attracted less by the temptation of wages, than by
the desire to leave liberty and land as the inheritance of their
children. But it would take a long time to build up a
manufacturing interest adequate to supply the wants of the
Northwest, or to consume the produce of these wide fields; and
the burden of taxation for internal improvements, uncompleted
and unproductive, would be very heavy and hard to bear: and all
the population that is concentrated upon manufactures, is so
much kept back from the occupation of that noble domain; and the
national treasury would feel the effects of the curtailment of
imports and the cessation of land sales; and the amount of
misery which the loss of the American market would occasion to
the starving operatives and factory children on the other side
of the Atlantic, is worthy to be taken into the account, by
every statesman who has not forgotten that he is a man."

If we refuse the Americans as customers, we compel them to become our rivals; and, after supplying their own wants, they will compete with us for the trade of the world, on more than equal terms. Our statesmen may yet employ America to build up the prosperity of our country whilst increasing her own, or they may suffer its rapidly developing and gigantic resources to work out our ruin: the alternative is before them and before the country--but decision must be prompt, for there is no pause in the march of events. However unwise the policy, we cannot be surprised that the American and Continental manufacturer are each applying to his government to follow our example, and protect home trade by fiscal regulations.

This question of trade with America has also most important anti-slavery bearings--and here, again, I find my own views anticipated by the able writer already quoted:

"The present policy of restricting the traffic with America so
closely to cotton, gives a deceitful appearance to the stated
imports and exports. From these statements there should, in
fairness, be deducted the value of all the raw cotton which is
returned to America; and, in fact, if the true exchange trade
would be seen, all should be deducted that is exported from
England. That portion of cotton goods which is of English
origin, that is, their value above the raw material out of which
they were made, is, in fact, the only real part of English
export. Before exclusive importance was bestowed on cotton, the
exchange with America was in a large proportion of articles not
to be returned. It would be so again if trade were free."

Again:

"To one effect which would be produced in America by the repeal
of the corn and provision laws, no party or class in England can
profess indifference, and that is, _its effect on slavery in the
United States_. At the present time, England gives a premium to
American slavery by admitting, at low duties, the cotton of the
slave-holder, which is his staple production, and refusing corn,
which is mostly the produce of free labor. The slave-holding
States, to the productions of which Great Britain confines her
American trade, are less populous and less wealthy than the
free; yet of their produce England received in 1839, according
to the American estimates, £11,600,000, while of that of the
free States she received less than £500,000."

"It should be remembered that the labor of the slave States, is
almost wholly expended in agriculture, under the stimulus of a
good market, while a large part of that of the free States is
otherwise employed, for the want of such market. The effective
laborers of the free States are double the number of those in
the slave States; and were an opportunity given them, they would
export in as great a proportion. Thus England, by her laws,
fosters an odious institution abroad, which, in words, she
loudly condemns, and spends millions to rid the world of; whilst
she rejects more honorable, profitable, and wealthy customers,
the fruits of whose free and active industry are in effect made
contraband in England by law.

"Not only would England escape this inconsistency and reproach,
by repealing the corn law, but she would strike a most effectual
blow at the existence of slavery in the United States. Cotton,
at present, from being made by the corn law the principal
exchangeable article in the American trade, assumes an undue and
unnatural importance in American commerce, legislation, and home
industry. The slave-owner drives his slaves in its production,
and purchases supplies of the northern freeman, whose interests
are thus identified with those of the cotton grower, and the
slave-holding interest becomes predominant in the country. From
their habits, the people of the slave-holding States are
constantly contracting more debts in the free States than they
have the means of paying; so that, under the present system of
intercourse, the slaveholders exercise over the free population
of the north, the same control which an insolvent debtor
frequently has over his creditor, by threatening to break and
ruin him, if not allowed his own way. A repeal of the corn laws
would release the free States from their present commercial and
consequent political vassalage to the southern slave-holders,
and thereby take from American slavery, the great citadel of its
strength, and insure its overthrow by the influences which would
arise to assail it from all quarters.

"But as free trade, in destroying the odious monopoly of the
haughty slave-holder, would benefit and not injure him, so would
its effects be found universally. It would give peace and plenty
to England and the world,--it would enlarge and secure trade,
bind the spreading branches of the Anglo-saxon race by natural
affinity to England as their acknowledged head, and promote the
liberty and civilization of the human family at large."

In view of the whole spirit of this discussion of one of the most important questions bearing upon human interests, I would simply add, that a wise Providence has bound the duty and the interest, both of individual and social man, firmly together, but for the trial of his virtue the bands are concealed.

On the 31st, I took my luggage on board the steam packet "Caledonia," for Liverpool, via Halifax, which was to sail the day following, although it was the first day of the week. The proprietors of the packets are bound in a heavy fine to sail on the appointed days, whether those fall on the first day of the week or not. By this arrangement the religious feelings of the people of Boston are offended, which is the more inexcusable, on the part of the British Government, as it does not suffer its own mails to depart, either from London or Halifax, on that day. Some gentlemen, who were interested in the subject, placed in my hands a memorial addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty in Great Britain, praying for such an alteration of the arrangements as would prevent this periodical violation of the first day of the week. A gentleman, who was active in getting it signed, assured me it was received with universal favor. The signatures, obtained on very short notice, are those of the most influential men in their respective stations in the city of Boston, and include the names of the mayor of the city, an ex-lieutenant governor of the State of Massachusetts, one bishop, upwards of forty ministers of religion, of different denominations, nine gentleman, upwards of one hundred and twenty merchants, seventeen presidents of insurance companies, the post-master of Boston, five physicians, seven members of the legal profession, and two editors of newspapers. After my arrival in this country, I presented this document, through the Secretary of the Admiralty, to the authorities to whom it is addressed, but regret to state that the request was not complied with. The memorial, and the reply of the Lords of the Admiralty are given in the Appendix[A]

[Footnote A: .See Appendix L.]

On leaving the shores of the United States, I left the following letter for publication:--

"_To the Friends of Immediate Emancipation in the United
States_.

"Having visited your country as an humble fellow-laborer in the
great cause in which you are engaged, and which, through trials
and difficulties a stranger can scarcely appreciate, you have so
zealously maintained, I have had a pleasing and satisfactory
interview with many of you, with reference to future exertions,
in cooperation with those of other lands, who unite with you in
regarding slave-holding and slave-trading as a heinous sin in
the sight of God, which should be immediately abolished. It is
the especial privilege of those who are laboring in such a
cause, to feel that 'every country is their country, and every
man their brother,' and to live above the atmosphere of
sectional jealousy and national hostility; and hence I feel an
assurance, that you will receive with kindness a few lines from
me on the eve of my departure to my native land.

"You concur generally in opinion, that in endeavoring to obtain
the great object we have in view, it is very important that the
friends of the cause should be united, not only in principle,
but, as far as may be, in the character of the measures which
they pursue; and I have been much encouraged in finding that you
have generally adopted the sentiment so rapidly spreading on the
other side of the Atlantic,--'That there is no reasonable hope
of abolishing the slave-trade, but, by the abolition of slavery,
and that no measures should be pursued for its attainment, but
those which are of a moral, religious, and pacific character.'
The progress of emancipation in Europe has been, beyond a doubt,
greatly retarded by leaving slavery and the slave-holder
unmarked by public reprobation, and concentrating all the
energies of philanthropy upon a fruitless effort to abolish the
slave-trade. And in this country the Colonization scheme, with
its delusive promise of good to Africa, and its vague
anticipations of putting an end to the slave-trade by armed
colonies on the coast of that ill-fated continent, has been the
means of obstructing emancipation at home, of unprofitably
absorbing the energies and blinding the judgment of many sincere
friends of the slave, and of strengthening the unchristian
prejudice against color. The abolitionists of Europe, with few
exceptions, have seen the error of their former course of
action, and are now striking directly at the root, instead of
lopping the branches of slavery; and if further evidence of the
evil tendency and character of colonization is needed in the
United States, the recent proceeding of a meeting of the
Maryland Society at Baltimore, must convince all who are
friendly to the true interests of the people of color, that it
is a scheme deserving only the support of the enemies of
freedom.[A]

[Footnote A: "The following resolution was passed at the meeting
of the Maryland Society above alluded to:--'That while it is
most earnestly hoped that the free colored people of Maryland
may see that their best and most permanent interests will be
consulted by their emigration from this State; and while this
Convention would deprecate any departure from the principle
which makes colonization dependent upon the voluntary action of
the free colored people themselves--yet, if, regardless of what
has been done to provide them with an asylum, they continue to
persist in remaining in Maryland, in the hope of enjoying here
an equality of social and political rights, they ought to be
solemnly warned, that, in the opinion of this Convention, a day
must arrive when circumstances that cannot be controlled, and
which are now maturing, will deprive them of choice, and leave
them no alternative but removal,'"]

"The rapid progress of public opinion, as to the iniquity of
slavery, and the entire safety, as well as advantage, of its
immediate abolition--the attention which has been awakened to it
in all parts of the civilized world--the movements in France,
Spain, Brazil, and Denmark, and other countries with
slave-holding dependencies, all indicating that the days of
slavery are numbered, should serve to encourage and stimulate us
to increased exertions; and while it is a cause of profound
regret, that any thing should have disturbed the harmony and
unity of the real friends of emancipation in this country--the
hardest battle field of our moral warfare--I am not without
hope, that, in future, those who,--from a conscientious
difference of opinion, not as to the object, but the precise
mode of obtaining it,--cannot act in one united band, will
laudably emulate each other in the promotion of our common
cause, and in Christian forbearance upon points of disagreement;
and that, where they cannot praise, they will be careful not to
censure those, who, by a different road, are earnestly pursuing
the same end. Without entering into the controversies which have
divided our friends on this side the water, I believe it would
be nothing more than a simple act of justice for me to state, on
my return to Europe, my conviction that a large portion of the
abolitionists of the United States, who approve of the
proceedings of the late General Anti-Slavery Convention, and are
desirous of acting in unity with the British and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society, from the general identity of their
practice, as well as principles, with those of the British and
Foreign Society, are entitled to the sympathies, and deserving
of the confidence and co-operation of the abolitionists of Great
Britain. It has been my pleasure to meet, in a kindly
interchange of opinion, many valuable and devoted friends of
emancipation; who, while dissenting from the class
above-mentioned in some respects, are nevertheless disposed to
cultivate feelings of charity and good will towards all who are
sincerely laboring for the slaves. And in this connection I may
state, that neither on behalf of myself, or of my esteemed
coadjutors in Great Britain, am I disposed to recriminate upon
another class of abolitionists, who, on some points, have so far
differed from the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Committee,
and the great majority of the Convention above mentioned, as to
sustain their representatives in refusing to act with that
Convention, and in protesting against its proceedings; and who
have seen fit to censure the committee in their public meetings
and newspapers in this country, as 'arbitrary and despotic,' and
their conduct as 'unworthy of men claiming the character of
abolitionists.'

"As a corresponding member of the British and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Committee, and intimately acquainted with its
proceedings, I am persuaded that its members have acted wisely,
and consulted the best interest of the cause in which they were
engaged, in generally leaving unnoticed any censures that have
been cast upon them while in the prosecution of their labors.
Yet, before leaving this country, I deem it right to bear my
testimony to the great anxiety of that committee faithfully to
discharge the duties committed to their trust; and to state that
it has never been my privilege to be united to any body more
desirous of keeping simply to the one great object of their
association--the total and immediate abolition of slavery and
the slave-trade. I am persuaded that all candid minds, making
due allowance for the imperfection pertaining to human
associations, will feel their confidence in the future integrity
of that committee increased in proportion as they closely
investigate their past acts; and that, even when the wisdom of
their course may have been questioned, they will accord to them
a scrupulous honesty of purpose.

"The first public suggestion of a General Anti-Slavery
Convention, like the one held last year in London, originated, I
believe, on this side of the Atlantic, although the Committee of
the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society took upon
themselves the heavy responsibility of convening it. At its
close, they invited an expression of the opinion of the
delegates, as to the desirableness of again summoning such an
assembly. The expression was generally in the affirmative; and,
after discussion, a resolution was passed, leaving it to the
Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, after
consulting with the friends of the cause in other parts of the
world, to decide this important question, as well as the time
and place of its meeting, should another Convention be resolved
upon.

"Since I have been in the United States, I have found those
abolitionists who approved the principles and proceedings of the
late Convention so generally in favor of another, and of London
as its place of meeting, that the only question seemed to be
whether it should be held in 1842 or 1843. This expression of
opinion is, I know, so generally in accordance with the views of
the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Committee, and of many
other prominent abolitionists in Europe, that I have little
doubt they will feel encouraged to act upon it, probably at the
latter period. There is abundant and increasing evidence of the
powerfully beneficial influence of the late Convention upon
almost every part of the world where slavery is still tolerated;
and we are encouraged to hope that the one in anticipation will
be still more efficient for the promotion of universal liberty.

"Painful as has been to me the spectacle of many of the leading
influences of the ecclesiastical bodies in this country, either
placed in direct hostility to, or acting as a drag upon, the
wheel of the anti-slavery enterprise--and of the manifest
preponderance of a slave-holding influence in the councils of
the State--I am not one of those who despair of a healthful
renovation of public sentiment which shall purify Church as well
as State from this abomination. There are decided indications
that all efforts of councils and synods to unite 'pure religion
and undefiled,' with a slave-trading and slave-holding
counterfeit of Christianity, must ere long utterly fail. And it
is to me a matter of joy, as it must be to every friend of
impartial liberty and free institutions, that the citizens of
this republic are more and more feeling that the plague-spot of
slavery, as with the increased facilities of communication its
horrors and deformity become more apparent in the eyes of the
world, is fixing a deep disgrace upon the character of their
country, and paralyzing the beneficial influence which might
otherwise flow from it as an example of a well-regulated free
government. May each American citizen who is desirous of washing
away this disgrace, to whatever division of the anti-slavery
host he may attach himself, ever bear in mind that the cause is
of too tremendous and pressing a nature to admit of his wasting
his time in censuring and impeding the progress of those who may
array themselves under a somewhat different standard from his
own; and that any energies thus wasted, which belong to the one
great object, so far as human instrumentality is concerned, is
not only deferring the day of freedom to two and a half millions
of his countrymen, but inasmuch as the fall of American slavery
must be the death-blow to the horrid system, wherever it exists,
the result of the struggle here involves the slavery or freedom
of millions in other parts of the world, as well as the
continuance or suppression of that slave-trade, to the foreign
branch of which alone more than _one thousand victims are daily
sacrificed_; and in reference to which it has justly been said,
'that all that has been borne to Africa of the boasted
improvements of civilized life, is a masterly skill in the
contrivance, and an unhesitating daring in the commission of
crimes, which the mind of the savage was too simple to devise,
and his heart too gentle to execute.' There are no doubtful
indications that it is the will of Him, who has the hearts of
all at His disposal, that, either in judgment or in mercy, this
dreadful system shall ere long cease. It is not for us to say
why, in His inscrutable wisdom, He has thus far permitted one
portion of His creatures so cruelly to oppress another; or by
what instrumentality He will at length redress the wrongs of the
poor, and the oppression of the needy; but should the worst
fears of one of your most distinguished citizens, who in view of
this subject, acknowledged that he 'trembled for his country,
when he remembered that God was just,' be finally realized, may
each one of you feel that no exertions on his part have been
wanting to avert the Divine displeasure, and preserve your land
from those calamities which, in all ages, have rebuked the
crimes of nations.

"Your sincere friend,

"JOSEPH STURGE.

"Boston, Seventh Month 31st, 1841."

My dear friend John G. Whittier, whose pleasant company and invaluable aid I had enjoyed, as much as his health would permit, during my stay in the United States, kindly accompanied me on board. Had he been less closely identified with the transactions of which the present volume is a record, I should have felt it due to his station among the earliest and most distinguished advocates of the anti-slavery cause in America, to attempt some delineation, however imperfect, of that rare and consecrated union of consistent Christian character, fine talents, and sound and impartial judgment, which give him so much weight in the councils of his fellow-laborers. We set sail about noon on the 1st of the Eighth month, (August,) and arrived off Liverpool about eleven o'clock, P.M. on the 13th, which interval included ten hours delay at Halifax. We had about ninety passengers from Halifax to Liverpool, and with the exception of a severe gale on the 10th, almost amounting to a hurricane, we had a very favorable voyage. The time from Halifax to within sight of the light house off the south coast of Ireland was announced to be only nine days and thirteen minutes.

One of my fellow passengers had recently been traveling in the southern States, and showed me a letter given to him as a curiosity at the post office at Charleston, South Carolina, which was addressed by a slave to her husband, but from insufficient direction had never reached its destination. It was to convey the tidings that she was about to be sold to the South, and begging him, in simple and affecting terms, to come and see her, as they would never meet again. Another of the passengers, who had also been a fellow voyager with my friend Joseph John Gurney, had recently travelled in Texas. He was strongly impressed with the evils likely to result from the proposed recognition of that government by Great Britain. In consequence of the promising aspect of these negotiations between General Hamilton and Lord Palmerston in favor of Texas, the paper money issued by that piratical government, and which had not been previously negotiable for more than one tenth of its nominal value, rapidly rose. The Texas republic, in his opinion, could not secure a permanence without British recognition.

Many planters, with their slaves, have emigrated thither to escape their creditors from the border States, and the republic has been lavish of grants of land to men of capital and influence, to induce them to settle within its limits. My informant considered the state of society to be as bad as it well could be, and continue to exist. The white inhabitants are living not only in fear of hostile Indians, but in fear of each other.

From a late letter of a friend in America, I make the following extract relative to the present condition of Texas.

"To give thee some adequate idea of the importance of that
beautiful republic of Texas, which Lord Palmerston and the late
Whig government of England took under their especial protection,
I will just refer to the statistics of the late election of its
President. The successful candidate, General Houston, a man
notorious for his open contempt for all the decencies of
civilized society,--brutal, brawling, profane, and
licentious,--received somewhat rising five thousand votes: his
competitor, Judge Burnet, between two and three thousand,--a
vote smaller by thousands than that of our little county of
Essex, in Massachusetts. Late accounts from Texas inform us that
gangs of organized desperadoes, under the names of moderators
and regulators, are traversing its territory, perpetrating the
most brutal outrages. In one instance they seized a respectable
citizen who dared to express his dissatisfaction with their
proceedings, hurried him into the forest, and deliberately dug
his grave before his eyes, _intending to bury him alive_! The
miserable victim, horrified by the prospect of such a fate,
broke away from his tormentors, and attempted to escape, but was
shot down and instantly killed! Such a congregation as Texas
presents was never, I suspect, known, save in that city into
which the Macedonian monarch gathered and garnered, in one
scoundrel community, the vagabond rascality of his kingdom.

"Thou would'st be amused to read an article, which has made its
appearance in the _Houston Telegraph_--a Texian paper--in which
the editor says, 'that while we deeply commiserate the situation
of our sister republic, in regard to the political scourge of
abolitionism, it is pleasing to reflect that our country enjoys
a _complete immunity from its effects_. Indeed we may with
safety declare, that throughout the whole extent of our country,
not a single abolitionist can be found.' He goes on to say that
this induces many of the southern planters to emigrate to Texas,
who, he remarks, '_will necessarily look to Texas, as the
Hebrews did to the promised land, for a refuge and home_.' It
will thus be seen that Texas is the promised land of the
patriarchal slave-holders of the southern States. When hunted
from every other quarter of the globe by the inexorable spirit
of abolition, when even Cuba and Brazil cease to afford them an
asylum--when slave-holding shall be every where else as odious
and detestable as midnight larceny, or highway robbery,--Texas
alone, uninfected and secure, is to open its gates of refuge to
the persecuted Calhouns and McDuffies, and their northern allies
in church and state--the San Marino of slavery, dissevered from
the world's fanaticism--isolated and apart, like the floating
air-island of Dean Swift."

The following extract from a recent New York paper gives an equally deplorable representation of the society in Texas.

"The pestilent influence of the recent horrible murders on the
Arkansas, and other United States' rivers, has caused the
practice of lynching to break forth with renewed fury in Texas,
where it had apparently slept for the previous year. And we find
recorded in the Texas papers nearly a dozen of these murders
that have occurred, and undoubtedly there have been more than as
many more. In Shelby county two citizens have been shot down,
and several houses burned by a party of outlaws. In Red River
two men have been hanged as horse-thieves, without judge or
jury. In Washington county one man has been shot down, under the
pretence that he was a murderer. In Austin county two men were
killed, and two hostile parties were in arms for several days,
taking the law into their own hands. In Jefferson county two men
have been killed, and the house of one of them burnt to the
ground by a party of self-styled 'regulators.' And all this in
the space of a year."

Several of my fellow-passengers were from Cuba, and some of them slave-holders by their own admission. With one or two of those who could speak English, I had much conversation on the abolition of slavery. They concurred with apparent sincerity in the desire that the slave trade might be effectually suppressed. They seemed to consider that this trade was promoted by the mother country as one means of preventing the colony from aspiring to independence. They admitted the abstract injustice of slavery, and one remarked, that a difference of the color of the skin was a misfortune, not a crime. They were not, however, disposed to entertain a thought of emancipation, without being fully compensated for their slaves.

I had again the pleasure of observing on this voyage, the benefits of the change of system with regard to the supply of wines and spirits, each passenger paying for what he consumes, instead of his fare including the privilege of drinking _ad libitum_. One of the stewards told me the quantity consumed was little more than one-tenth as much as under the former system.

I cannot conclude my narrative more gratefully to my own feelings than by a tribute to the upright and conscientious officer who commanded the vessel. On the first day of the week, the only one we spent at sea, the passengers, and as many of the servants as could conveniently attend, assembled morning and evening in the saloon, for the purpose of religious worship. Lord Frederick Fitzclarence, one of the passengers, officiating as a minister of the English Establishment; and every evening a similar opportunity was offered in the fore cabin to all who were inclined to be present. The captain firmly resisted the introduction of cards on the first day of the week, and in his whole conduct manifested an anxiety not only for the temporal comfort and safety, but for the spiritual interests of those under his care. Would that all captains of vessels, invested as they are with such authority and influence over the passengers and crews, were like-minded with my friend Captain McKellar.

I disembarked at Liverpool early in the morning on the 14th of Eighth month, (August,) 1841.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

The reader who has accompanied me thus far, will not need to be informed that I have designedly omitted many of those remarks on scenery, manners, and institutions, which were naturally suggested to my own mind by a retrospect of my sojourn in the United States. On various subjects of great interest and importance, it would be difficult for me to add anything new or valuable to the information contained in other and well known works; while on those points to which my attention was chiefly directed, I have endeavored, as far as practicable, to incorporate the results of my inquiries in the preceding narrative. There remain, however, a few observations, for which, having found no appropriate place, I would bespeak attention in a concluding chapter.

In the Northern States, education, in the common acceptation of the term, may be considered as universal; in illustration of which it may be mentioned, that on the occasion of the late census, not a single American adult in the State of Connecticut, was returned as unable to read or write. Funds for education are raised by municipal taxation in each town or district, to such an amount as the male adults may decide. Their public schools are universally admitted to be well conducted and efficient, and combine every requisite for affording a sound, practical, elementary education to the children of the less affluent portion of the community. I need scarcely add that in a republican government, this important advantage being conceded, the road to wealth and distinction, or to eminence of whatever kind, is thrown open to all of every class without partiality--the colored alone excepted.

The following extract from a letter received since my return from a respected member of the Society of Friends, residing in Worcester, Massachusetts, will give a lively idea of the general diffusion and practical character of education in the New England States.

"The public schools of the place, like those throughout the State, are supported by a tax, levied on the people by themselves, in their primary assemblies or town meetings, and they are of so excellent a character as to have driven other schools almost entirely out from among us. They are so numerous as to accommodate amply all the children, of suitable age to attend. They are graduated from the infant school, where the A B C is taught, up to the high school for the languages and mathematics, where boys are fitted for the University, and advanced so far, if they choose, as to enter the University one or two years ahead. These schools are attended by the children of the whole population promiscuously; and, in the same class we find the children of the governor and ex-governor of the State, and those of their day-laborers, and of parents who are so poor that their children are provided with books and stationery from the school fund. Under this system, we have no children who do not acquire sufficient school learning to qualify them for transacting all the business which is necessary in the ordinary pursuits of life. A child growing up without school learning would be an anomaly with us. All standing thus on a level, as to advantages, talent is developed, wherever it happens to be; and neither wealth nor ancestral honors give any advantage in the even-handed contest which may here be waged for distinction. It is thus that we find, almost uniformly, that our first men, either in government or the professions, are the sons of comparatively poor and obscure persons. In places where the wealthier portion of the community have placed their children in select schools, they are found much less likely to excel, than when placed in contact and collision with the mass, where they are compelled to come in competition with those whose physical condition prepares them for mental labor, and whose situation in society holds forth every inducement to their exertions. To this system, which is co-eval with the foundation of the State, I attribute, in a great degree, that wonderful energy of character which distinguishes the people of New England, and which has filled the world with the evidences of their enterprise."

The preceding statements refer to New England, the oldest portion of the free States. The more recently settled Northern and Western States are necessarily less advanced, yet their educational statistics would probably bear comparison with any country in the world, except the most favored portion of their own. In the slave States the aspect of things affords a striking contrast. Not only is the slave population, with but few exceptions, in a condition of heathen barbarism, a condition which it is the express object of those laws of the slave States, forbidding, under the heaviest penalties, the instruction of the slaves, to perpetuate; but the want of common elementary education among large numbers of the privileged class is notorious. Compare Virginia with Massachusetts,--"The American Almanac for the year 1841, states, (page 210) there are supposed to be hardly fewer than 30,000 adult white persons in Virginia who cannot read and write!" An able writer gives the following facts.

"No one of the slave States has probably so much general education as Virginia. It is the oldest of them--has furnished one half of the Presidents of the United States--has expended more upon her University than any State in the Union has done during the same time upon its colleges--sent to Europe nearly twenty years since for her most learned professors; and in fine, has far surpassed every other slave State in her efforts to disseminate education among her citizens; and yet, the Governor of Virginia in his message to the legislature, (Jan. 7, 1839) says, that of four thousand six hundred and fourteen adult males in that State, who applied to the county clerks for marriage licences in the year 1837, one thousand and forty seven were unable to write their names." The governor adds, "these statements, it will be remembered are confined to one sex: the education of females, it is to be feared, is in a condition of _much greater neglect_."--The editor of the Virginia Times published at Wheeling, in his paper of January 23d, 1839, says,--"We have every reason to suppose that one fourth of the people of the State cannot write their names, and they have not of course any other species of education."[A]

[Footnote A: "American Slavery as it is," page 187.]

The destitution of the means of moral and religious improvement is in like manner very great. A recent number of the "Monthly Extracts from the correspondence of the American Bible Society," contains the following extract from the 28th annual report of the Virginia Bible Society: "The sub-sheriff of one of our Western Counties stated the following fact to your agent. A jury was to be empannelled in a remote settlement of this country--he happened to have left his home without a Bible--there was no Bible in the house where the jury was to sit, and the sheriff travelled fourteen miles calling at every house, before he found a Bible. Pious surveyors stated to your agent that they had traversed every settlement in a remote section of one or two of our south western counties, that they had frequently inquired among the settlers for a Bible, but had never seen or heard of one in a region, say sixty miles by fifty."

There are few things more striking in the free States than the number and commodiousness of the places of worship. In the New England States, however general the attendance might be, none would be excluded for want of room. The other means or accompaniments of religious instruction are in the same abundance. How is it possible to evade the conclusion that Christianity flourishes most, when it is unencumbered and uncorrupted by state patronage? What favored portion of the United Kingdom could compare its religious statistics with New England?

Religion and morality, viewed on the broad scale, are cause and effect--a remark which is fully borne out in the Northern States, and in no instance more remarkably exemplified than in the spread of temperance. A few years ago the consumption of ardent spirits, and other intoxicating drinks, was as general as in England, and the effects even more conspicuous and debasing. It is now very rare, in the free States, to see a drunken person, even in the most populous cities. At the large hotels, as far as my observation extended, it is the exception, not the rule, to take any spirituous or fermented beverage at or after dinner; and no case of inebriety came under my notice in any of these establishments. I have already remarked, that some of the first hotels in the principal cities are established on the strictest temperance principles. I believe, in private hospitality, intoxicating drinks are, in like manner, very much discarded. At the tables of members of the Society of Friends, it is very rare to see either wine or malt liquor introduced; while, as already noticed, the selling, using, or giving ardent spirits is so great an offence as to be made the subject of church discipline. This is, by no means, one of the "peculiarities" of "Friends," as I believe it may be generally stated that the same practices, in most other Christian communities, would be considered as quite incompatible with a profession of religion.

The effects of this great reformation are not confined to the United States, although the change hitherto has been much more gradual in my native country; not so, however, in Ireland, now, by a happy reverse, a scene of light and promise, amidst surrounding gloom and depression. Of the American facts I have to record, connected with the temperance movement, the most grateful is the striking contrast that is exhibited in the Irish emigrants. By the divine blessing on Theobald Mathew's benevolent labors, they have generally forsaken their besetting sin of drunkenness in their native land, and if compelled to seek the means of subsistence in another country, they now at least do not carry with them habits that tend irresistibly to destitution and degradation. The Irish movement is likewise re-acting most beneficially on the native Irish, who have long been settled in America, and who are joining the total abstinence societies in great number, though hitherto the most intemperate part of the community.