of corn has sometimes cost $10 before it reached the camp, what would be the expence of colonizing such an host? If even 20,000 colonists were yearly sent out, how enormous would be the expence, and how great the undertaking. Yet, with 20,000 colonists only sent out yearly, the numbers of those which remain would continually encrease, if the same causes which have hitherto contributed to their multiplication should be continued. Besides, what hardships, what destruction, would not the wretched colonists be exposed to? If humanity plead for their emancipation, it pleads more strongly against colonization; for, having stated the impracticability of it within the United States, I pass over the scheme of sending them back to their native country, to effectuate which, without the most cruel oppression, would require the utmost exertion of all the maritime powers in Europe, united with those of America, and a territory of ten times the extent that all the powers of Europe possess in Africa. One of three courses, then, must inevitably be pursued: either to incorporate them with us, to grant them freedom without any participation of civil rights, or to retain them in slavery. If it be true that either nature or long habit have depraved their faculties so as to render them, in their present state, an inferior order of beings, may not an attempt to elevate them depress those who mingle and incorporate with them? May not such an attempt be frustrated by prejudices too deeply rooted to be eradicated? The numbers being so nearly equal in Virginia, may not such prejudices generate a civil war, and end in the extermination of one party or the other? especially as Nature herself has fixed the characters by which those parties would be discriminated, so long as either existed. To the second measure, it has been objected that, by granting freedom only, without civil rights, you will stimulate them to procure by force what you have refused to grant them, which must lay the foundation of all the evils to be apprehended from a full incorporation of them amongst us. And to both measures it is further objected, that agriculture will languish as soon as they who are now compelled to till the ground are left at liberty to work or be idle, as most agreeable to them; that experience among us has shewn that emancipated blacks rarely are industrious; that, if so great a proportion of the inhabitants of the country should become idle, they will soon owe their subsistence to

plunder alone; that those who wish for their emancipation equally wish for their total removal from the limits of the State; that, having been long accustomed to strict restraint in small bodies, they will not easily be restrained by general laws, which they have never been in the habit of regarding as having any relation to them. Those who argue thus contend that their present condition (the rigors of slavery having been much softened among us within these few years) is infinitely preferable to that degraded freedom they would enjoy, if emancipated. They insist that they are better clothed, lodged, and fed, than if it depended upon themselves to provide their own food, raiment, and houses; that the restraint upon them prevents their falling into vicious habits, which emancipated blacks appear too prone to contract. It may be observed, indeed, that, although the number of slaves is to the free blacks as 24 to 1, yet there are many more of the latter brought to answer for their crimes in courts of judicature than of the former. One reason for this undoubtedly is that slaves are punished by their masters for petty larcenies, for which a free man can only be punished by due course of law. But, even of capital crimes, more are committed by free blacks than by slaves. And, if I may judge by my own experience in courts which I have attended, the proportion of free black criminals to whites is nearly as one to three, though the proportion of free blacks to whites is not more than one for thirty-six. It is, however, but just to observe that I do not recollect more than one instance of murder committed by a free black, and in that instance he was an accomplice with a white man, who was the principal in the murder. Among slaves, murder is not very uncommon; and not unfrequently their victims have been their overseers, and sometimes, though very rarely, their own masters or mistresses, by means of poison. In most of these cases, the most humane persons have been the sufferers. They occur, however, so very seldom, that I am inclined to believe as many cases happen in England of masters or mistresses murdered by their servants, as in Virginia.

I have taken the liberty of troubling you with these remarks, wishing, if your leisure will permit, to learn your sentiments on a subject of such importance to humanity, which is, unhappily, involved in a labyrinth of political difficulties. I feel myself sometimes prompted to exclaim, "Fiat justitia ruat cœlum"! but the

scene now passing in the West Indies prompts me to suspend my opinion, and to doubt whether it will not be wiser to set about amending the condition of the slave than to make him a miserable free man. Your communications on this subject, whenever your leisure will permit, without interrupting your other pursuits, will be most gratefully received.

I have endeavoured to procure for you a copy of Stith's History of Virginia, but without that degree of success which I wish, having only been able to get one which is mutilated of the preface, and in several leaves of the beginning of the work. I never saw but two complete copies of it. One, now in my possession, I borrowed of an old neighbour, who refused to sell it to me. The other was in possession of Mr. Stith's daughter, a woman turned of fifty, who resides in this town. She would not part with it. From her I was informed" that her father died in the

year 1755. She was then 13 years old. She recollects no particulars respecting him, except that he was turned of fifty, she thinks about 55. She remembers that his papers, and with them a large book of letters, were delivered to Col. Richard Bland, of Prince George County, who, as she understood, was to finish the History of Virginia, which her father had begun." The Rev. Mr. Spooner, formerly of New England, now Rector of Martins Brandon parish in Prince George County, some years ago published proposals for printing the works of Col. Bland, from original papers in his possession. I think it probable that Mr. Stith's papers, and the book mentioned by his daughter, might have been among them, and have obtained a promise from Bishop Madison to write to Mr. Spooner on the subject. From the preface to Stith's appendix, it would appear that he had very little encouragement to go on with his work; a circumstance to be regretted, as the materials at that day within his reach are now irretrievably lost, all the public Archives of Virginia, which had escaped two fires, having been destroyed at Richmond, by General Arnold. Mr. Jefferson calls him "a man of classical learning, and very exact, but of no taste in style." His prefaces bespeak him a man of labour, well qualified for making a compilation of those materials, which he had not the talent of arranging and unfolding with that elegance which constitutes one of the excellencies of an historian. I am encouraged to hope that the mutilated copy of his work

1

which I send you may, may with the assistance of that which you mention having seen, afford you a full view of his work, having observed a reference to page 7th of Stith, in the 1st volume of your American Biography, and the copy sent being perfect after the 8th page. If, however, I should be mistaken, if you will apprize me of it, I will have the preface and the first eight pages transcribed, and send them to you.

*

It is but a few days since I have had the pleasure of seeing the work which I have just mentioned. I read it with pleasure, and hope that its success has been such as to give us hopes of seeing the continuation. The account given of Biron, I find, perfectly corresponds with that of Mons". Mallet, in his Northern Antiquities, a work which, if you have not seen, you will probably find deserving a place in your library. I am led to take the liberty of making this remark, as I observed you had not referred to it. I some time since met with a book entitled "Letters on Iceland," the author a German, or Dane, or Swede, whose name I do not recollect. If I mistake not, he mentions some traces of Biron's voyage to Finland, though possibly my having read Mallet since may occasion me to mistake. This author accompanied Sir Joseph Banks to Iceland, a few years ago. The cursory reading that I was obliged to give it occasions me to doubt whether I am correct in saying that he mentioned Biron's Voyage to Finland.

I had also the pleasure of seeing one number of the publications of the Historical Society in Boston. I wish that such societies were established in every part of the Union, or that correspondents were diffused throughout the United States. You will do me a favour by transmitting me all the numbers that have been published, bound in annual or biennial volumes, and by placing my name on the list of subscribers. The amount of my subscription shall be transmitted through the hands of Messrs. Baxter & Co., in Richmond. Might I not appear too presumptuous, I would entreat you to forward me any litterary - productions of merit that either have appeared, or may hereafter appear, in Boston. At the head of this list, I should beg leave to mention the American Biography.

I fear, sir, I have exhausted your patience by this long letter,

*This copy of Stith is now in the Library of the Historical Society. - EDS.

I will only add to it a repetition of those thanks which you are entitled to from me, and subscribe myself, with the highest respect and esteem, sir,

Your most obliged, humble servant,

S. G. TUCKER.

You will receive, by this post, the copy of Stith's History of Virginia, and a small pamphlet.

JAMES SULLIVAN TO DR. BELKNAP.

BOSTON, July 30, 1795.

REV. SIR,I have read, with great pleasure, the letter you were so obliging as to put into my hands from your very valuable correspondent, Mr. Tucker. I admire the goodness of his heart, and the elegance and patriotism of his sentiments; but he, like other good men, has to enjoy by anticipation that which can never be accomplished in his day. The subject which is so near his heart, and appears to employ so great a part of his public contemplations, is not new to me. I have had Governor Jefferson's ideas upon it some years ago, and gave him my opinion, which I will presently give to you, in one word. The objections stated by Mr. Tucker to three measures proposed for émancipating the black people of United America are all well maintained by his unanswerable arguments; while the pain he evidently feels to find a fourth, to which no insurmountable objection could be made, does great honour to his character as a man, and in some degree attones for the violation of human rights which his fellow-citizens have been guilty of. The freedom of the blacks, without allowing them to participate of civil privileges, appears to me the most eligible of the three measures which he has contemplated. But I am clearly of opinion that this would be nothing more than to throw 300,000 of the human race, idle, profligate, and miserable, on the bosom of the earth. These, urged by extreme hunger, and encouraged by combinations of aggravated complaints, supported by an idea of justice from their former sufferings, would take by force what the white people should procure by agriculture; and thus, unless over