property as horses and the young ones of horses. In Maryland (we are now going towards the North) there is now a mitigation of some sort; also in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and the New England, States. I do not know whether an absolute abolition has taken place in any State; though I believe it has. In the State of New York the law made all free that were born after a certain period; and after another certain period, those born slaves were to become free. I cannot take upon me to say exactly how the thing stands with regard to these States; but I believe, that if you bring your slave into a State with you, he does not become free by that act of yours; and that, if he escape from you and go into one of these States, he may be lawfully seized as a slave and taken away. Delaware State and Maryland, which lie to the South of Pennsylvania and join on to Virginia, appear, as the reader will find, to be the principal theatre of the Slave Trade, though, as will be seen, the villains who carry on the traffic have the audacity to carry it on even in the City of Philadelphia.

7. So much for the States. Now, which is very material to observe, the Congress, that is to say, the Government of the Union, has had allotted to it a territorial jurisdiction, exclusive of all the States. This spot is on the Potomac River, which divides Maryland from Virginia. The territory thus allotted is a piece of land ten miles square, in the centre of which is the City of Washington. Now, we shall find this spot to be the very focus of the Slave Trade. The reader will see, in paragraph 46. an account of a drove of chained Negroes marching under the Capitol of this very City; and Mr. Torrey gives an account of Members of Congress standing at the threshold of the building, viewing, on their march by, a troop of manacled slaves, one of whom raised up his manacled hands towards the building, while he sang, what Mr. Torrey calls the favourite National Song, "Hail Columbia, happy Land! Hail the freest of the free!" This spot is called the district of Columbia; and on this spot, Mr. Torrey tells us Slaves were employed when he was there, to re-erect the building burned down by the British. Yea, Slaves employed to raise up the magnificent Temple of Freedom!

8. With this sketch before him, the reader will enter on this public spirited, humane, and highly meritorious gentleman's book with a tolerable chance of pretty clearly understanding the state of the matter as a whole. The book will Speak for itself; and it will have this effect, amongst others, as far as it go, namely, to convince us, that we ought not to be incessantly railing against West India Slave Holders, while we see Slavery existing to such an extent, and the Slave Trade carried on with such shocking cruelty, in a Country which, throughout the world is famed for its freedom. There are acts recorded in this book; acts committed with perfect impunity; that West India Slave Holders would be put to death for attempting; a fact which, amongst thousands of others that might be cited, proves, that there is no tyranny equal to that, which is practised under the names and forms of liberty.

9. The Congress of America have passed a resolution to authorize their Ambassador to negociate with our Government for the sending out of a joint squadron of Observation to the coast of Africa, to prevent a violation of the treaties relative to the Slave Trade. I trust that our government will not tax the blood and bones of Englishmen for any such purpose, while Negroes, free as well as enslaved, can be killed with impunity in the United States, and while a trade in the bodies of slaves actually forms a part of the internal commerce of that Country, the magazines of which commerce are in the very spot where the Congress holds its sittings.

10. I do not bring any accusation against the people of the United States generally, and particularly to the North of Maryland. It has required great virtue and self denial to do what has been done in the middle and Northern States, in order to get rid of this stain upon the Country. In the parts where I have lived, and where there is any thing of Slavery remaining, I have always observed great gentleness and goodness in the owners towards their slaves, whom they treat with great kindness and care, and whom they feed and clothe exceedingly well. But, while I have always heard them lamenting the existence of Slavery in their Country, I cannot be so unjust, I cannot act so unnatural a part, as to conclude that our own West India Planters must be cruel and brutal; seeing that Slavery exists to so great an extent in America, notwithstanding the very prevalent and strong disposition to do it away. How great must be the difficulty to accomplish this, let the reader judge; and how foolish, then, must the Government of this Country be, if it think to accomplish any thing similar to it, merely, because the thing is called for by a set of visionaries, or, what is worse, by a set of hypocrites, who, by an appeal to the best feelings of the popular heart, knowing all the while that they are misleading the understanding, endeavour to gratify their own selfish ambition!

Wm. COBBETT.

Kensington, 18 Sept. 1821.

AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE.

11. Many schemes have been proposed for alleviating the miseries and evils produced by the enslavement of the African race in the United States. Possessors of slaves, as well as others, have investigated the subject with great industry and anxiety; and all agree that something ought to be done. The suggestion of an infallible remedy is useless, if it be impossible to attain or apply it. Exportation to Africa, (the country to which the wisdom of their Creator has adapted their colour and faculties;) separate colonization on the public lands; employment on national canals, roads, &c. have been recommended. These projects are most certainly impracticable, except partially:—because their completion would require the voluntary estrangement by its legal holders, of an immense quantity and value of what is generally though erroneously termed property—human liberty.[1] And in the present moral and intellectual condition of the slaves, the result would be perhaps of doubtful benefit.

12. In examining this subject, I shall endeavour to be temperate, and to avoid indulging in the use of reprehensive acrimonious modes of expression.

13. Without the most distant inclination to aggravate the feelings of any individual, but because "we ought not to shrink from the investigation of truth, however unpopular, nor conceal it whatever the profession of it may cost,"[2] a concise sketch will be presented, of the facts and incidents which have prompted this address. The peculiar connexion with which some of these occurrences succeeded each other, was certainly