At the next term the judge withdrew the permission granted Mr. Barker to appear in the case, when that gentleman, determining not to be thus overthrown, commenced studying law, and pursued the study until he got admitted. At his first examination before the supreme court his acquirements were not found to be sufficient. He was thrown back on his books, and continued his reading until he felt himself to be qualified, when he presented himself again to the supreme court for another examination, which resulted favorably. This enabling him to appear before Judge Harper duly qualified as a counsellor at law, no further objection was made, and he conducted the business to a successful issue. Before this result, however, the judge was removed by death.

A judgment had been rendered in favor of the plaintiff's previous to Mr. Barker's visiting Louisiana by Judge Robertson, who was Judge Harper's predecessor, Judge Harper being clerk of the court at the time, whose duty it was to have the judgment signed three days after its rendition. Shortly after this Judge Robertson died, and Harper was appointed judge, when he refused to grant an execution, saying that the judgment had never been signed; that when he presented it to Judge Robertson for his signature he refused to sign it, saying it was a rascally claim, and that he never would sign the judgment. Judge Harper was then requested to sign it himself, as it was his duty to do. He refused. Application was made to the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington for a mandamus commanding him to sign it, which was granted, and Mr. B. went to New Orleans, armed with that document. On its presentation Judge Harper signed the judgment, and execution was issued. Soon after which he granted an injunction staying all proceedings, which, after a year or two, was dissolved without requiring proof, the allegation in the bill being insufficient.

After the death of Judge Harper, the original judgment, duly signed by Judge Robertson, was found in a trunk among Judge Harper's waste papers, it having been removed by him from the files of the court. This original judgment, thus signed, Mr. Barker brought before the State court, to which the debtor had applied for the benefit of the insolvent law. Here the district judge, holding court at Plaquemines,

held it to be necessary to prove the seal and signatures of the Life and Fire Insurance Company. It was too late to send a commission, and it was not known that there was a single person in Louisiana who could give the required testimony. This ruling of the judge was resisted, and while the associate counsel was arguing the point a boat from New Orleans, for Louisville, stopped to land passengers. Mr. Barker, hearing the steam blowing off, repaired to the levee, in the hope of obtaining a late newspaper. On approaching the boat, he recognized William Porter among the passengers. He knew that gentleman possessed the necessary information. An arrangement was made with the captain to delay his departure. Mr. Porter attended court, and gave the required testimony. He was the only man in Louisiana sufficiently informed to have given it. His arrival at the critical moment seemed to be as miraculous as the discovery of the judgment surreptitiously removed from the files of the court, which, when considered with the discovery of the original records of the midnight proceedings of the New York conspirators against the Tradesmen's Bank, and their attempts to make an innocent man answerable for their errors, seemed calculated to weaken a belief to which Mr. Barker has always adhered, viz: that there is not any divine interference with the affairs of men while on earth.

During the progress of these suits Mr. Bar ker gave some attention to sugar planting, imagining that it could be more successfully conducted with free than with slave labor. To test. this, he sent a ship to Hamburg and brought out Germans, who were to work a certain number of of years for the passages. The selection was unfortunate, his plantation was too near (forty-five miles) New Orleans, where the high rate of wa ges and other seductions of a city life soon induced these misguided persons to desert their post, so that in about one year not one remained to relate the failure of the experiment.

Mr. Barker abandoned the business, being satisfied that it was not adapted to his course of life, and that if the cultivation of sugar in Louisiana by free white labor ever became general, it could only be brought about on very small plantations, by farmers and their sons accustomed to labor taking an active part

therein, each employing a few additional hands. In that way, if the price of sagar afforded a remunerating profit, slave labor could be dispensed with, there not being anything in the climate or cultivation more unfavorable to the white than to the black population, both require to be acclimated.

This experiment failing, Mr. Barker having been taught to believe that the difference in the races was attributable more to their education and habits than to other causes, he took a family from a plantation for the purpose of testing this matter, and sent one of them, a promising boy, by the name of Adam Baker Smith, to Liverpool, per ship Russia, to John Fisher, esq., an eminent merchant, to be educated, the laws of Louisiana not allowing slaves to be educated in the State. This boy was returned to Mr. Barker, the schools in England refusing to admit persons of color as scholars. On his passages he acquired, by the kindness of the captain of the ship, Samuel Elliot, some knowledge of reading and writing. He became a good house servant, and then a porter in Mr. Barker's bank. At the age of twenty-one he was made free, and employed on wages in the bank, where he served faithfully for some years, and then went to California. There he found employment in a banking establishment, which enabled him to remit to Mr. Barker fifteen hundred dollars, with which his wife and child were purchased and sent to him, where they are all doing well.

Adam's sister he sent to New York, and made her free. She returned to New Orleans, where she now resides, without seeming to benefit by her freedom, although the most talented of the family.

Two other girls of the same family he sent to Massachusetts to be educated. The youngest is still there doing very well. The oldest was enticed away from Mr. Barker's friends at an early age, and he has no knowledge of what became of her.

Another boy of great promise, at the age of five years, Mr. Barker sent to Germany, and kept him there at school several years, brought him back to Philadelphia, where he behaved very well for a year or two. Having contracted a roving disposition, he left a very comfortable home, and enlisted in the naval service of the United States. Mr. Barker's son interposed,

and he was released on account of his youth. He, however, very soon again embarked in the sea service, and although several attempts have been made to put him in the way of doing better, they have all proved unavailing. In that service he has suffered very much, and writes home very sensible letters, from which it would be inferred that once back he would remain on shore; yet after a few months' land service, with very good prospects, he yields again to his ruling passion to buffet the waves.

Another boy he sent to New York, and placed him with a mechanic in Westchester county to learn his trade. This boy may turn out well, as he appears to have fine talents.

Another boy he took with him to the north, and put to school in Westchester county, New York, offering him his freedom if he would remain at the north. Very many persons interceded with him to do so; it was all in vain ; he could not be induced to accept his freedom on such terms.

Although Mr. Barker has been greatly disappointed in the result of these experiments, he made one more effort by sending a female child, an orphan, whose mother died in his service, to Nantucket, where she was adopted by a very respectable colored family, and appears likely to be an exception to the general rule.

Many other of the Baker family remain in Louisiana, it appearing useless to attempt to improve their condition; and after more than twenty years' residence in a slave State, Mr. Barker has come to the conclusion that the master is a greater slave than the bondsman; that slavery operates prejudicially to the agricultural interests of the State; but it is an evil entailed by our ancestors which cannot be abolished with the means within the power of the State; that the slaveholders would consent to a general emancipation on receiving the value of their slaves from the treasury of the United States; yet they have no belief that their condition would be improved.

Mr. Barker knows that they are more comfortably provided for when in health, better taken care of when sick, and indulged in more rational amusements than are enjoyed by the laboring classes of any other country; have full religious liberty, and are allowed to intermarry according to their own fancy, and their

children are generally treated with the same kindness as those of their masters.

True, there are exceptions, and cruelties practised in all countries, quite as much so in free as in slave States. When a white man is detected in a crime he is punished in free States according to the nature of his offence; and Mr. Barker witnessed, when very young, the horrible scene of a white woman being tied to a cart in a public square, and there receiving on her naked back many lashes, which had been imposed by a court for a trifling theft. When slaves are detected in crime they are also punished, but the number of such punishments is not believed to be comparatively as great, or more severe than is inflicted on offenders in free States; yet it is a constant practice of those who are opposed to the institution of slavery to refer to these occurrences as evidence of general cruel treatment of slaves.

These people are greatly deceived, and most of them very honest in their zeal in favor of freedom, and, Mr. Barker is persuaded, would not meddle if they knew the unfavorable influence of their measures, causing much greater restrictions on the slaves than would be otherwise imposed.

That slavery is contrary to that great principle which teaches us to do unto others as we would they should do unto us, there can be no doubt, yet it is idle to waste our substance, our time, and our good feelings for each other on what is utterly impracticable. How far the slaves would make a valuable community, if made free, and placed in a colony by themselves, where their children could be educated and grow up free from the withering influence arising from the supposition that they were to be slaves for life, is problematical, but without such an education, Mr. Barker is satisfied they cannot be materially benefitted by the interposition of white men at a distance.

Many free persons of color being subject to great hardships from the police of New Orleans, Mr. Barker frequently interfered in their be half, creating very considerable prejudice against him. His interference was constantly misrepresented by interested parties and in the newspapers. So great at one time was this feeling that he considered it expedient to make the following publication:

"TO THE PUBLIC.

"My opinions and conduct having been grossly misrepresented, I beg to be allowed to speak for myself. All my exertions have been and will continue to be confined to sending out of and keeping away from the State free men of color. This, when properly considered, will be approved by every slaveholder. "On the 3d July instant, I wrote to a gentleman at Philadelphia, who had employed me to present to court the proof of the freedom of a man confined in prison, as follows:

"You should publish in the newspapers, and otherwise admonish all free people of color to keep away from this place, and especially if they have had their freedom established here they should keep away, as all such persons are notified to quit the State within sixty days, and if days but for an hour, they are sent to the penithey remain or return again after the sixty tentiary for twelve months, and then ordered to quit in thirty days, and if they remain or return again after the thirty days they are sent to the penitentiary for life.

"There is no safety for free men of color not born here, or here before 1825, but to keep away from this place. This community is justly afraid of their contaminating influence on the slaves, and they cannot be permitted to mingle with each other; and while I shall at all times be willing to aid in securing to free men the exercise of their just right without regard to color, I advocate all constitutional and legal measures for keeping free people of color away from slave holding States. I think their friends in your quarter cannot do them a better service than to admonish them not to come here.'

"My conduct has always corresponded with these opinions. I have not in the whole course of my life, to my recollection, written or said a word, in or out of court, at variance therefrom. "When admitted to appear in the courts of Louisiana, the laws of the State as well as my duty imposed the obligation of fidelity to my clients, and it is strange that any one should complain of my having complied with the misrepresentation that has led them to do so. requisites of that obligation. It must have been "My family have a deep interest in slave property, and no man is more tenacious of, or go further to protect the rights of slaveholders than myself.

will

"If any man feels aggrieved, he has but to point out in what particular, and I will afford him all the satisfaction in my power, when he will discover that he had no just cause of complaint.

"Why pass laws protecting free men of color if it is to be considered wrong for counsel to appear in their behalf? No one will pretend their own rights. And if they were, they, at that they are capable of maintaining in court work in irons on the highway, could not get

their cases before the court with the proper proofs.

"It may be here proper for me to state, for the information of the public, some of the many facts which have come to my knowledge in relation to the treatment of free men of color in the prison of the second municipality. Having occasion to visit that prison, very many prisoners poured forth their complaints through the grates as I was passing through the road, declaring themselves free, that they were unlawfully detained and kept at work on the highway in chains. It would have been inhuman to have turned a deaf ear. Many of them appeared to be so white as for the law to presume them free. I immediately represented the case to his honor the recorder, who had six of them brought up, and pronounced five of them free from their complexion, without argument and without requiring any other testimony; and, on my enquiring why they had not been liberated the morning after their arrest, their degree being as visible then as at any other. time, his honor replied that they had been placed in the chain gang by the officers of the prison without having been brought up before him for examination. Was it wrong to interfere in behalf of these men?

"Public justice as well as every principle of humanity requires that prisoners, however great their offence, should have free communication with their counsel.

"On two occasions I was denied all access to prisoners in the second municipality, in whose defence I had been requested to assist, on the plea that no such persons were confined. After many months' perseverance, by the aid of his honor, the recorder, I had an interview with one of them, and the only excuse offered for his concealment was that I had enquired for Charles Chandler, when his name was Charles C. Chandler; and by the aid of his honor, the mayor, with the other, after less delay, the excuse for his concealment was that I inquired for James Lloyd Warner when they had him on the prison books only by the name of Warner. Are such practices to be tolerated in this enlightened age? There was not any pretence that either of these men were slaves. "On a recent occasion, I was informed that a colored man, born in my native State, Maine, of free parents, was in the chain gang at work on the highway-had been there since September last, although the driver of the gang knew him to be free, was born in the same town, went to school with him, and had known him from his childhood. I communicated these facts to his honor, the recorder, he had the matter promptly inquired into, and the man liberated, but without a penny's compensation for nine months' services improving the second municipality.

'At the prisons of the first and third municipality I have been treated with the greatest politeness, and every facility afforded by the

officers and keepers in bringing the law to the relief of the prisoners.

"Again, it was the practice unlawfully to retain prisoners in the second municipality for their board, doctor's bills, &c., after their free dom had been established, until I brought the matter before a higher court; and, on one occasion, without crediting on the account rendered the money taken from him when arrested. The public will please to observe that the rule in the second municipality was to allow prisoners three picayunes a day for such days as they labor on the public road, and to charge three picayunes a day for their board, in addition to the clothing supplied, the doctor's bills, &c. Hence, as they cannot labor on Sundays, hollidays, or in stormy weather, they are brought in debt, as soon as confined, the amount of which is augmented weekly, and as these men seldom have money, and have no means of earning any during their confinement, their simple arrest without being charged with the slightest offence would amount to a decree of perpetual imprisonment, if no person from humane feelings had been allowed to interfere, and no counsel allowed to bring their case before the tribunals of the country.

"If the police officers of the second municipality expect to escape exposure by their attempts to light up the torch of suspicion against others, and to continue their unlawful and inhuman conduct towards their prisoners with impunity, they will be mistaken. The legislature is composed of slaveholders, who understand their rights and their interest too well to permit such abuses. They will enquire into the matter and make all obedient to the requirements of the law.

"JACOB BARKER."

On the failure of the bank which had built

the St. Charles Hotel at New Orleans, Mr. Barker, being a large creditor, procured an act of the legislature to have the hotel sold to pay the debts of the bank; in this way he became the owner of nearly one-half the celebrated St. Charles Hotel, which was burned in 1851. From the materials of which it was built, and its position, three sides open to the street, where the engines could operate without obstruction, and a supply of water at hand, it was believed that a fire could not damage it more than one hundred thousand dollars, that amount only was insured. It has been rebuilt at a cost of more than $400,000; consequently the actual loss was very great, from which the old stockholders in a great degree escaped, as they refused to undertake its rebuilding, in relation to which the following proceedings

were had:

THE REBUILDING OF THE ST. CHARLES HOTEL.

A large meeting of citizens was held last evening, pursuant to a notice, at the Mer chants' Exchange, to adopt measures for the prompt rebuilding of the St. Charles Hotel.

On motion of Mr. C. Fellowes, Mr. John M. Bell was appointed chairman, and W. S. Pickett secretary..

Mr. Bell, on taking the chair, delivered a neat and appropriate speech, returning his thanks for the compliment, and explaining briefly the object of the meeting. He remarked, in conclusion, that he thought the merchants and citizens could take no steps in the matter, with propriety, until the views of the present company could be ascertained. He saw that Mr. Egerton was present, and, presuming that he was acquainted with the wishes of the present board of directors, he hoped he would present them.

Mr. Egerton remarked that he did not feel authorized to speak the views and wishes of the company, but would give his own as one of the stockholders, and a member of the board of directors, elected that day. He said he had stated distinctly that he would not serve unless it was the intention of the company to rebuild the hotel without delay; and he believed that but one feeling existed among the members of the present company. He stated that the charter authorized the sale of twenty thousand shares of stock of twenty-five dollars each; that thirteen thousand five hundred had been sold, and the company found it unnecessary to sell the remaining six thousand five hundred shares. One thousand of the shares sold had been bought in for account of the company, leaving seven thousand five hundred shares unsold. He thought these might now be offered for sale, and that the proceeds, with the amount to be collected from the insurance offices, with the foundations already laid, and the old materials, would be nearly or quite sufficient to rebuild the hotel. He knew the pride which was felt in it by our citizens generally. It was the most beautiful edifice he had ever seen, and constituted the chief ornament of our city. Its celebrity was not confined to the south, nor even to this country, but extended to almost every part of the civilized world. He had no doubt, therefore, that our citizens would have it rebuilt, if they had to do it by subscriptions and voluntary contributions; that, however, would not be necessary. Mr. Jacob Barker, having appeared and taken his seat in the meeting while Mr. Egerton was speaking, when he concluded, was called on for his views. He said he represented a majority of the stock of the present company, but he had not been authorized to speak for the stockholders he represented-he could only speak for himself.

He was one of the stockholders, and the secretary of the board of directors, and he was willing and anxious to resign and to sell out

his stock. He thought this would be the wish of all the stockholders, and that it would be best for them to do so, and to allow a new company to be formed, in which they would become new stockholders to a liberal amount. He thought the hotel might be rebuilt without going in debt. He was opposed to going in debt; pay-day would come bye-and-bye, and he had no opinion of getting into the hands of the sheriff. The company owed comparatively nothing. The books were all posted and balanced, to a cent. He thought that to require the new subscribers to pay $25 per share for stock, while the value of that held by the present company is only $12 50 to $14 per share, appeared to be so unreasonable that he could not expect it to be agreed to. For one, as a new subscriber he would not agree to it, and he should blush to require such terms as one of the present stockholders.

Subscribers, said he, for the whole 20,000 shares, as per charter, at $12 50 per share, would leave $100,000 of the amount with the company, for the 8,000 shares reserved stock, in addition to the $10,000 expected to be received from insurance companies. Thus, the company would have the land, the foundations, and the materials, liable only for $94,000, payable in May, 1855, with seven per cent. interest, payable half-yearly.

By this arrangement, he said, the new directors will have $100,000 in hand with which to commence the building. The other $100,000 would not be wanted in less than four, six, and eight months, and the present stockholders would probably give a credit on a part of the purchase of their stock, and would also be likely to become new subscribers, on the same terms with their neighbors, to a reasonable amount; but he said he only spoke for those he represented-not as a director, but with a confident belief that all would agree to those terms. Very little money would be required on making the subscriptions.

At the close of Mr. Barker's remarks, which were received with much applause, Mr. F. A. Lumsden rose and offered the following resolutions:

Resolved, That a committee of seven disinterested persons be appointed by the chairman of this meeting, to ascertain what arrangements can be made with the present stockholders of the St. Charles Hotel Company, relative to disposing of their shares in the stock of said company, and further to ascertain their views relative to disposing of their charter, site, foundations, materials, etc., and that said committee report to an adjourned meeting.

Resolved further, That said committee be instructed to inquire and report what means are necessary to reconstruct the St. Charles Hotel.

On motion of Mr. Wm. Henderson, the blank was filled with Wednesday evening, at six o'clock. The resolution was then adopted,