low hard upon the footsteps of the slaveholder. The slave tells you that where he lives the white man is ferocious; the common rules of slaveholding propriety are vindicated by the bowie knife, sustained by the pistol, and asserted by the rifle. Assassination is the arraignment, trial and execution, among slaveholders.

They enslave their own children, sell them for provisions, eat them up by circuity; they are anthropophagi, secondhanded. So do the crocodiles of the same region eat their young, until they are strong enough to escape. The whole ten miles square echoes with screams and flagellation ; a man beating a woman to extort, unpaid, from the quivering flesh, labor in some field, or over some wash-tub, enough for his support; in another direction a woman, with jewels in her ears, is beating a man to extort labor, unrewarded, to maintain Madam in idleness. In another quarter, the coffled gang of slaves are marching to enter the bastile erected on this ten mile square. Their groans ascend night and day amidst the cracking of whips, and the cursing of land pirates-these body and soul dealers. There is mourning, the wife torn from her husband and children to see them no more. There the loving child whose garment is fastened to the body in bloody stripes, mangled for mourning the bereavement of her parents. Is this a sight for the foreigner to behold? Oh, my country! how degraded! Oh! my God! when shall these scenes come to an end? Shall we become a proverb? Shall the minions of power in the Old World sneer at our kidnapping morality? Shall our native Indian forever despise civilization, built on such criminal injustice? Well may he prefer the wigwam of the wilderness to palaces, built by money coined from the slaves' tears and blood. Well may he prefer the Great Spirit to the Christian's God, if the southern professor has not defamed the Divinity he professes to adore.

The orator divides Abolitionists into three divisions: 1st. The harmless Quaker who is opposed to slavery, but is also more opposed to any noise and disturbance in effecting it. There are, truly, some such frosty Quakers, but this is not their general character. There is a large body of this respectable denomination, who would not be so alarmed at the outcry of ferocious slaveholders, foaming with fury and threatening, in powerless impotency, as to be deterred from an energetic and unconquerable pursuit of those merciful constitutional provisions, which open up a passage from the hideous dungeon of slavery. No! never can we suffer those nobleminded Quakers to be misrepresented by the flattering orator, who would rob them of those priceless honors purchased amidst dangers by day and by night in opening their doors to the hunted fugitives, and closing them on their bloody pursuers; who have bound up their wounds, fed, clothed, pitied, nourished and cherished, and then have taken those who were ready to perish, and carried them, night after night, on their way to the land of freedom, in their carriages, and putting money in their hands have referred them to the next man with a broad-brimmed hat, as a place of mercy, and pointing their finger to the North Star, which never sets, and always shines as the slave's compass, hung out in the heavens to direct the abused man in his lonesome night wandering, on his way to the land of the Lion and the Unicorndirects them to the land where the eagles of British mercy will inclose them beneath their ample wings, and make them free by the power of British law; where the pursuing slaveholder will cease from troubling and the weary slave will be at rest.

These men, who, in the last thirty years, have been angels of mercy in conducting 50,000 fugitives to Canada, will not thank the senator for his left-handed compliments.

Mr. Clay will do well to remember that the Friend, the

Quaker, abhors war, and no war so much as the continued war between master and slave, and that even Quakers are not such profound lovers of the peace of the Union, and the power of the States, but what they would not fear to jeopardize the former and curtail the latter, if, by so doing, slavery might end.

The second class of Abolitionists named by the orator, he says are only "apparent" Abolitionists, because the right of petition is supposed by them to be violated, and therefore he seems to infer that these men have run on board the Abolition ship, until the nation has passed the danger of violating the Constitution on the right of petition, and after that difficulty is over, they will all be out, hurrahing and huzzaing, for slavery whips, and unpaid labor, again. This class of men I am an entire stranger to, having never seen one of them; I cannot say but what Mr. Clay is right. His knowledge is great, and his candor in describing a third set of Abolitionists must make us believe that he cannot be mistaken.

LETTER TO THOMAS W. GILMER,

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA,

In answer to his Proclamation offering a reward of $3,000 for the delivery to the jailer, at Norfolk, of Peter Johnson, Edward Smith and Isaac Gansey, men of color, residents of New York, attached to the schooner Robert Centre, charged with stealing a negro slave named Isaac, the property of John G. Colley, 1841.

HIS EXCELLENCY GOV. GILMER, OF VIRGINIA :

SIR: As a citizen of the State of New York, and as a member of this Republic, I cannot deny that I feel a deep interest in the issue which you and the lieut.-governor of your State, have seen fit to create and tender as between New York and Virginia, on a topic of the most solemn interest, involving the dearest rights of men, the personal liberties not only of the citizens of the State of New York, but also of those of other States, together with those of the stranger and visitor from other countries. The question is one of such magnitude, that I trust it will be considered a sufficient apology for the humblest citizen to run and shut the door against the approach and entrance of such ill-omened principles, which, for the first time, by ingenious constructions, are seeking admission into that group of fraternal maxims, under whose benignant sway we and our fathers have lived, protected at home, and have been defended when abroad.

Your predecessor, in July, 1839, demanded three colored men then attached to the schooner Robert Centre, to be surrendered up by the governor of this State to the authorities of Virginia, "for having feloniously stolen from one John

G. Colley, a certain negro slave named Isaac, the property of said Colley." Mr. King, mayor of Norfolk, certifies that Colley, of Norfolk, made an oath before him, of which the above is the form and substance, on the 22d July, 1839.

These are the facts. This is the case made by Virginia. On these facts you reiterate the demand of your predecessor, that the three men should be delivered up as felons, and that you intend to make the world believe you are in earnest, for since the governor of this State has refused compliance with your demand, you have offered a reward of $3,000 to any person in this State, or your own, to kidnap them and surrender them to Virginia, and thus violate the sovereignty of New York, while the individuals capturing, kidnapping and surrendering these men, would subject themselves to be indicted for a felony, and imprisoned, from five to ten years, in the New York State prison.

It may be added as a part of the facts, in this place, that a search was made on board the Robert Centre, a ship lying in the port of New York, by the master of the slave Isaac, or his agent, where, Isaac being found, the master or agent, in defiance of the law of Congress of 1793, without examination before any court or judicial authority, and in defiance of the laws of this State, committed a felony, punishable for several years in the State prison, in taking Isaac from this State without lawful authority and in defiance of our laws.

But dismissing for the present the reward of $3,000 offered to violate the sovereignty of New York, and the crime of abduction and kidnapping committed by the citizens of Virginia on Isaac, we will return to the consideration of the affidavit made before the mayor of Norfolk, which contains a statement of your case, as you see fit to make it, after having been admonished by the governor of this State, that it might be in the power of the authorities of Virginia to amend the affidavit so as to state at what time Isaac was stolen-the