Occasions much anxiety.

and not into the mother country because slave labor cannot compete with the free where the employer has his choice.'

How inappropriate then the praise which Cowper bestows on his native country, in the lines that follow the quotation which you just now made:

"'That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud

And jealous of the blessing."

If slave labor be so unprofitable, and if the naturally rich lands of the South become, in process of time, barren under its culture, it is not strange that slavery should have retired first from the Northern and Eastern states.'

'Slavery is a tax that poor soils and cold climates like ours cannot endure. The cost of cultivating an unproductive soil with slaves, is more than the productions of the soil would bring in return.'

Yet cold countries and comparatively unproductive soils are cultivated by free labor to advantage?'

Yes; Switzerland, Scotland, and New England, are striking examples of it. The freedom and character of the laboring population, make these countries populous and wealthy, although nature has by no means been liberal in her gifts to either of them. Introduce there a system of slave labor, and pauperism and famine would be the inevitable consequence. It has been well remarked that "free and slave labor move in opposite directions from the same point of departure; and, while one is regularly diminishing the capacity of the earth for production, the other is constantly nourishing and invigorating its powers." It is an opinion of no recent date, but ancient as slavery itself, that the labor of bondmen is gradually destructive of the soil to which it is applied.'

'I can appreciate now,' said Caroline, 'a remark of Miss

F

Great vigilance necessary.

Harriet Martineau-she says, "The slave system inflicts an incalculable amount of human suffering for the sake of a wholesale waste of labor and capital." I have been told that the slave population of the South is a great check upon the enjoyments of life, and a source of constant apprehension and of very frequent alarm. It seems to me that if I lived at the South, I should have the bloody scenes of St. Domingo and the Southampton massacre haunting my fears continually.'

I cannot say that I ever felt alarmed on account of personal exposure at the South, although I resided there, many years, in the midst of a slave population chiefly. I confess, however, I now conceive the danger greatly increased. Your mother was once obliged, in company with a multitude of other ladies and their children, to flee, in the night, several miles into the country, at a time of threatened insurrection. In some parts of the southern states such causes of fear and momentary distress, are not unfrequent.'

I suppose, Pa, that the circumstances of the Southamp ton insurrection are recollected by you: will you give us some account of it. I have forgot its detail, although I retain the impression which it made. The leader of that insurrection was a negro, was he not?'

'It would neither be pleasant nor profitable to dwell on that most melancholy catastrophe. Suffice it to say, it was planned by a negro, by the name of Turner. He communicated his plans to a few kindred spirits, who with ready minds and hands engaged in the work of preparation. Others were gradually prepared for the intended event. When the work of destruction commenced, they armed themselves with hatchets and axes. Turner ascended by a ladder to the upper part of his master's house in the silence of night, and passing down stairs, opened the outer doors of the house

Insurrectionary alarms.

With

to his followers, and told them the work was now open to them, Turner himself giving the first blow with a hatchet both to his master and mistress as they lay asleep in bed. In his confession, he said that his "master sprung from the bed and called his wife, but it was the last word; another blow laid him and his wife both dead." The murder of the family, five in number, was the work of a moment. "Not one of them awoke," said Turner. He continues, "There was a little infant sleeping in a cradle, that was forgotten until we had left the house and gone some distance, when Harry and Will (two accomplices) returned and killed it. We got here four guns and several old muskets, with a pound or two of powder." They then proceeded to the next house, a mile distant. They there shot a man whom they met in the yard. It was now day-light. The family in the house took the alarm, and fastened the door. one stroke of an axe the door was broken in. They entered, and finding two ladies, they killed them, one with a single blow of an axe, the other, Turner said, he took by the hand and with a sword struck her several blows over the head, but the sword being dull, another negro despatched her with an axe." At another house, after having murdered all the family but the lady and her daughter, Turner said that one of his associates "pulled the lady out of the house, and on the steps severed her head from her body with a broadaxe." "Miss ," he continues, “when I discovered her, had concealed herself in the corner formed by the projection of the cellar-cap from the house. On my approach she fled, but was soon overtaken, and, after repeated blows with the sword, I killed her by a blow on the head with a fence-rail." In this way they proceeded until more than sixty persons, men, women, and children, fell a sacrifice to the vengeance of their slaves. I cannot go through with a rehearsal of all the circumstances. I have

Insurrectionary alarms.

not a heart for it. What has been related, nearly in the language of Turner himself, will serve to give one some faint idea of the horrors of a negro insurrection, and of the dangers against which the utmost vigilance is necessary to guard the lives of multitudes.

'I have here a letter from a gentleman in Georgia, which will perhaps enable you to form a more vivid idea of the sensation produced in every southern town, when an insurrection is apprehended. The letter was written some time since, not to myself, but to Mr. It says, "The

papers from this state have no doubt apprised you of the excitement which prevails here about our black population. We were all thrown into great fright and confusion, a few nights since, by a report that the negroes on a plantation about five miles distant had risen, and were marching direct for the town. It was 11 o'clock at night, when the whole population were in their beds. You cannot conceive, no matter how active your imagination may be, the scene that ensued. In an hour, every woman and child in the place was transported to the largest building in the town for safety, and a large patrol placed in front to protect them. I had retired when the alarm was given, but we immediately got up and dressed, and were soon after joined by Mrs. with her infant, pale as marble. I closed the door, and urged them to be quiet, and remain in the house; but it was useless-go they would-others were gone, and they would not stay to be murdered. Finding reasoning lost, I opened the door and out we sallied-your humble servant with a half naked babe in his arms, and two women by his side, scudding with as much speed as a Baltimore schooner, under a full press of canvass. ** We staid all night. * *The alarm has subsided, but I do not think we are safe one hour. The very elements of destruction are around us, mingling in all our relations, and we know not at what moment the

Slavery an evil to master snd slave.

storm may burst over us. An insurrectionary spirit is abroad, and God only knows when it will be subdued-my own opinion is that it never will be."

'O slavery!' said Caroline, I hardly know which situation is more distressing-that of the slave-holder, or his bondmen.'

CONVERSATION VIII.

"What day passes by without the occurrence of some event, or the witness of some scene, which draws from every feeling heart a sigh or a prayer for the complete fulfilment of all the most sanguine hopes of the friends of colonization? It is not merely for an unfortunate portion of our fellow beings, who have been thrown upon our charity, that this Society is formed: ourselves, our children, our land, and every institution of our beloved country, are deeply involved."-Bishop Meade.

• We are now ready for another conversation on Africa. I thought that you, at least, Caroline, retired from the subject last night well satisfied with a residence in a non-slaveholding state, and congratulating yourself, perhaps, that you could lay your head on your pillow without the apprehension of being aroused before morning by the cry of “an insurrection?",

Indeed, Pa, I have thought much of the South; more, perhaps, because I was born there; and I acknowledge that I have often wished to see the land of my infancy and earliest childhood, especially when I have heard you speak so honorably and feelingly of the kindness and hospitality of the South, and so affectionately of the many warm friends we have there. I have myself formed a very exalted idea of the warm-hearted friendship and genuine hospitality of the