others, that even those Northern States undertook to abolish negro slavery within their own limits. And when at last this measure was actually em

braced by them, they conducted it (as we shall presently see) in a style the most tenderly regardful of the iniquitous interests of the white slave-owners, and disdainfully negligent of the just rights of the injured blacks, who have ever since experienced "the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely," even in the territory where empty statute declares them free, and practically continue slaves in every circumstance except the name...

It is likewise true that various applications were unsuccessfully addressed to the British government from some even of the Southern States, against the further importation of negro slaves. But in every case of the kind with which I have been able to acquaint myself, these applications were the selfish suggestions of men who themselves possessed abundance of slaves, and who were desirous of preventing others from rivalling them in wealth and provincial influence, and from endangering the public peace and the stability of slavery by additional importa tions of negroes unaccustomed to the yoke. They desired to retain and fortify their own aristocratic position by excluding new colonists from the

means of sharing it, and by making the increase of the white population contribute more effectually to the general safety against the disproportioned numbers of the blacks. When in consequence of the Revolution, the government of these States fell into the hands of the majority of the people instead of an aristocratical faction, not one of them renewed the proposal to limit or discontinue the slave trade; but all united in giving it a prolonged endurance of twenty years. Britain acted heinously ill in permitting slavery and protecting the slavetrade; but she acted neither inconsistently nor unjustly in refusing to permit one class of Americans at once to revel in the possession of negro slaves, and to exclude all the rest of the colonial population from the same means of enrichment and indulgence.

But, of a truth, the slave-trade itself, though patronized by the British crown, might at any time have been effectually resisted by any American colony whose provincial government was heartily supported in such purpose, not by a mere class, but by a decided majority of the inhabitants. In the year 1703, the provincial assembly of Massachusetts imposed a duty of 47. on every negro imported into the province; and nine years after, passed an act prohibiting the importation of any more Indian

servants or negro slaves. Maryland, attached to slavery by evil interests which Massachusetts was exempt from, could and did abridge the British share of the slave-trade, in order to enlarge the share which her own merchants obtained in that traffic. By an early statute of her domestic legislature, a duty was imposed on negroes imported in vessels of which all the owners were not resident colonists.*

The only one of the thirteen American colonies. united in revolt against British supremacy which was founded after the establishment of the British Navigation System, and the application of the principles of that system to the slave-trade, was Georgia. Let us see what the American pleader to Lord Brougham has to say with respect to the introduction of slavery into this province, whose peculiar circumstances, he is fully sensible, afford the surest test by which the justice of the American complaint can be tried. Instead of condensing his meaning, I shall transcribe his words, as the only fit vehicle for such meaning as he has shown a head to conceive and a tongue to express :"The case of the colony of Georgia," says he, "was if possible more remarkable and afflictive

* Holmes' American Annals, ad annos 1703, 1712, and 1715.

than that of any of the others. That colony was not founded in the darkness of the seventeenth century, but almost in the middle of the eighteenth. It was the last in the order of time of the whole thirteen British colonies which afterwards formed the United States. The worthy and beloved General Oglethorpe was its founder and first governor. As usual, no sooner was the colony established or rather commenced, than slaves began to be forced upon it. The governor and council besought the British Government not to allow slaves to be brought for market to that colony. This they did at a time when the parent country might easily have prevented the evil."" All that Georgia could do was to petition and to remonstrate. This was done nine or ten times, as can be proved by the records of that colony, until the British Government, wearied by the importunities of the venerable Oglethorpe and his council, dismissed him from his office! These, my Lord, are matters of fact; and if they are not known to the world, it is time that they should be."*

A more monstrous mass of impudent fiction than the American pleader here presents to the acceptance of Lord Brougham has never insulted the * "Letter," &c. pp. 7, 8.

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credulity of human nature since the days when Titus Oates published his Narrative of the Popish Plot under the auspices of Lord Shaftesbury. Of such men as this writer were probably composed those London juries in the reign of Henry VIII., of whom it was said by an eminent personage of the time, that they would find Abel guilty of the murder of Cain. The Americans are as little honoured by his patronage, as Lord Brougham is by his correspondence. What would be the statesman of whom this were the instructor! And what must be the cause of which this is the champion!

I appeal to all the annals of Georgia, and to every general History of the United States in which the particular fortunes of Georgia are recounted, for the truth of the following counter-statement of facts. When the plantation of Georgia was commenced in the year 1733, the administration of political authority over its territory was committed by royal charter, not to any branch or department of the British Government, but to a Board of Trustees composed of those generous philanthropists by whom the colonial project had been devised and digested. It was by this board that General Oglethorpe, one of its own members, was appointed to preside over the colony and it was during the