bound to put it under very strict regulations. Mahomet ordained, that in the sale of captives, the mothers should never be separated from the children. Surely then, if the founder of Islamism yielded to the feelings of humanity in such a case, the followers of the merciful and tenderhearted Jesus must see the propriety of doing likewise.

"For ah! what wish can prosper, or what prayer,

For merchants rich in cargoes of despair,
and span,

Who drive a loathsome traffic, gage

And buy the muscles and the bones of man ?”

Certainly if the trade be not speedily put under very strict regulations, mankind will loudly exclaim to America,

"Oh! shame to thee land of the slave,"

and it is to be hoped that the time has not yet arrived when the governments of Maryland and Virginia may be regardless of the opinions of the civilized world.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE FREE BLACKS.

UNDER this denomination I include mulattoes, and all others of negro descent who are not under the curse of slavery. Those persons in England who have formed a high opinion of America without being acquainted with the real state of the opinions and sentiments of the inhabitants, will be surprised to learn that throughout the country there prevails a prejudice against the coloured people, as strong as that in Germany and Denmark against the Jews. It extends from the highest to the lowest, like a gangrene corrupting the whole. That this prejudice is the strongest in the slave States will be readily conceived; for slavery and a black skin being united, the whites have learned to look upon one with the same contempt as the other. But that in the northern and midland States where slavery has ceased, the prejudice should be so strong as it is, may excite both wonder and regret. If a white person were to walk arm in arm with a black, in Broadway or any other of the leading streets in New York, he would pro

bably be hooted and pelted by the populace. I was once conversing in one of the streets of Paris with a New York citizen, when two genteelly dressed persons, the one a white the other a black walked by us in the way I have mentioned. My acquaintance instantly calling my attention to them, expressed his astonishment and abhorrence at a white man's so degrading himself. His surprise then may be easily guessed, when I informed him that there was not the slightest degradation in it in the estimation of Europeans. Soon after, I fell into company with another gentleman from New York to whom I mentioned this circumstance, when he told me, that as he was travelling in France by the public stage, a black woman was one of the passengers; but that rather than sit at the same table with her as the other passengers did, he chose to go without his dinner. A gentleman at Philadelphia told me that he had lost his credit for veracity, by mentioning to a company of his fellow citizens, that he had seen a black man in London sitting on a sofa with some young white ladies, and conversing familiarly with them. And another person told me, that as he was walking in Edinburgh with some American women, they were quite shocked at the sight of a mulatto gentleman with two white ladies walking with

him, one on each arm. The Americans hardly knew how to repress their indignant feelings. I will now mention an instance to show the hardship which is sometimes felt by the blacks, in consequence of this ridiculous prejudice. A black woman applied for passage by the ship which conveyed me to New York, but the captain objecting, she offered to take her meals at a separate table. This concession however was unavailing, for he refused to take her on any terms. On his mentioning this circumstance during the voyage, he was much applauded by the American passengers, particularly by the females, who so far from sympathizing with one of their own sex under such a difficulty, rejoiced heartily at the captain's decision, and said that they would sound his praises in New York for it.

But the most remarkable peculiarity in this prejudice is, that it is not the colour of the skin which determines where it shall cease. I will relate a few circumstances in exemplification. The following I received from a Virginia planter. A number of persons were assembled at a village in Virginia to see a horse race, and with the usual hospitality of the country a resident of the place invited several strangers to his house, where he provided them with beds for the night,

but there being more visiters than beds, two young men agreed to share one together. It so happened that about a fortnight after, a discovery was made that one of these young men was of African descent, which from the lightness of his complexion, none of them had suspected. This was a terrible dilemma! His bedfellow had to bear the rallyings of his acquaintances and was exceedingly mortified at the circumstance; and the master of the house came in for his share

of ridicule for having entertained such a person at his house. Another case similar to this occurred in the Savannah Fencibles. A man who had been two years in that company was accidentally found to have had a black ancestor. This was enough. His comrades would no longer associate with him, and he was discharged. Thus it is not necessary for a man to have the mark of his ancestry in the colour of his skin to make him an outcast, and this too in a land which boasts of being the most enlightened in the world, and values itself on having broken through the prejudices which have so long enslaved Europe! No property, no virtue, no learning, no talent will suffice to remove from the descendant of a negro, the odium attached to him from his birth. Of the truth of this, I learnt a curious instance in the daughters of a Scotch