ent has furnished us with some striking illustrations of this subject, which we give below.

SLAVE MONGERS.-A person has lately been hung in North Carolina for kidnapping-but dealers in slaves, and slave drivers in Maryland and elsewhere, are not to be reached by the laws. The time will come, when this business will be as severely punished, as it is heartily detested by all honorable men. We do not mean to cast reproach on the owners of slaves Humanity itself forbids general emancipation unless gradual, and with provision for the relief of the emancipated, but we cannot conjure up to our imagination a character more monstrous than that of a dealer in slaves, as ordinary merchandise.-Niles' Register, for June 28, 1828.

DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE.-The New-York Gazette says, "It is but a few weeks since we observed the arrival at New Orleans of three vessels from Norfolk, having on board nearly six hundred slaves."-Niles' Register, Dec. 27, 1828.

It appears from the reports of the Comptroller of South Carolina that the number of slaves in that State decreased in one year, from 1824 to 1825, thirty-two thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven; and in the next year, one thousand one hundred and twenty-nine: total decrease in two years, 33,856-being more than one eighth of the whole number (260,282) in 1824.-Niles' Register, April 8, 1829.

THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE-A Portsmouth (Ohio) paper gives the details of a bloody transaction that occurred between a drove of negroes and their drivers about 8 miles from the above village, in the state of Kentucky. It appears that the negroes, 60 in number, were chained and hand-cuffed in the usual manner of driving these peor wretches, and that by the aid of a file, they succeeded in separating the irons which bound them in such way as to be able to throw them off at any moment. In the course of the journey two of the slaves dropped their shackles and commenced a fight, when the wagoner, Petit, rushed in with his whip to compel them to desist. At this moment every negro was found perfectly at liberty, and one of them seizing a club gave Petit a violent blow on the head and laid him dead at his feet. Allen, who came to his assistance, met a similar fate from the contents of a pistol fired by another of the gang. Gordon was then attacked, seized and held by one of the negroes, while another fired twice at him with a pistol, the ball of which each time grazed his head, but not proving effectual, he was beaten with clubs and left for dead. They then commenced pillaging the wagon, and, with an axe, split open the trunk of Gordon. and rifled it of the money, about $2,400, Sixteen of the negroes then took to the woods. Gordon in the mean time, not being materially injured, was enabled, by the assistance of one of the women, to mount his horse and flee; pursued, however, by one of the gang, on another horse, with a pistol. Fortunately, he escaped with his life, barely arriving at a plantation as the negro came in sight, who then turned about and retreated. The neighborhood was immediately rallied, and a hot pursuit given, which we understand has resulted in the capture of the whole gang, and the recovery of the greater part of the money.-Niles' Register, Sept. 5, 1829.

DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE.-The schooner Lafayette, with a cargo of slaves, from Norfolk for New Orleans, narrowly escaped being captured by them on the voyage. They were subdued after considerable difficulty, and twenty-five of them were bolted down to the deck until the arrival of the vessel at New Orleans.Niles' Register, January 9, 1830.

DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE.-According to the New Orleans papers, there were imported into that port, during the week commencing on the 16th ult., from the

various ports of the United States, 371 slaves, principally from Virginia, as follows:

It is among the abominations that attend upon slavery, in which, in some cases, we fear that fathers have made a traffic in their own children as slaves! We well remember a conversation with Mr. CALHOUN when Secretary of War, in which he introduced the subject. He stated a case, in which the feelings of a large assembly had been much outraged by the exposure of a man placed on the stand for sale as a slave; whose appearance, he said, in all respects, gave him a better claim to the character of a white man than most persons so acknowledged could share; and he thereupon suggested that some regulation ought to he made, by which individuals so circrcumstanced, should be declared freemen.-Niles' Register, October 25, 1834.

OPINIONS AND TESTIMONY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.

A friend has kindly put us in possession of a letter from MR. JEFFERSON to DR. PRICE, of London, for which we are exceedingly obliged. It was written more than half a century ago, while Mr. Jefferson was in France, and shows with authority, which few will dare to dispute, what was the state of public sentiment in the United States in regard to slavery at that time. By the help of this letter as a sure signal we may ascertain what progress we have made in respect to liberty. The letter may be found in Jefferson's Posthumous Works, Vol. I. page 268.

To DR. PRICE.

PARIS, AUG. 7th, 1785.

SIR-Your favor of July 2d came duly to hand. The concern you therein express as to the effect of your pamphlet in America induces me to trouble you with some observations on that subject. From my acquaintance with that country I think I am able to judge with some degree of certainty of the manner in which it will have been received. Southward of the Chesapeake it will find but few readers concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will approve it in theory, and it will find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice. A minority which for weight and worth of character preponderates against the greater number who have not the courage to divest their families of a property which however keeps their consciences uneasy. Northward of the Chesapeake you may find here and there an opponent to your doctrine, as you may find here and there

a robber and a murderer, but in no greater number. In that part of America there being but few slaves they can easily disencumber themselves of them and emancipation is put into such a train that in a few years there will be no slaves northward of Maryland. In Maryland I do not find such a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity as in Virginia. This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression, a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily recruits from the influx into office of young men grown and growing up-these have sucked in the principles of liberty, as it were with their mothers' milk, and it is to them I look with anxiety to turn the fate of this question. Be not therefore discouraged, what you have written will do a great deal of good, and could you still trouble yourself with our welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side.The college of William and Mary in Williamsburgh, since the remodeling of its plan is the place where are collected together all the young men of Virginia under preparation for public life. They are there under the direction (most of them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of characters and whose sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal. I am satisfied if you could resolve to address an exhortation to those young men with all that eloquence of which you are master--that its influence on the future decision of this important question would be great, perhaps decisive. Thus you see that so far from thinking you have cause to repent of what you have done, I wish you to do more, and wish it on an assurance of its effect. The information I have received from America of the reception of your pamphlet in the different states agrees with the expectation I had formed. THOMAS JEFFERSON.

At what time during the last twenty years would one of our foreign ministers have dared to court "foreign interference" with our "domestic institutions ?"— Let our maligners and the persecutors of George Thompson settle their account with THOMAS JEFFERSON. It is in the language of THOMAS JEFFERSON-one of the southern parties to the "compact"-that we say,-Be not discouraged, GEORGE THOMPSON; your mission will do a great deal of good, and could you still TROUBLE YOURSELF WITH OUR WELFARE, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. So far from thinking you have cause to repent of what you have done, WE WISH YOU TO DO MORE.-In saying this, are we traitors to our country? So was THOMAS JEFFERSON. In saying this do we violate the spirit of the great compromise? We were taught by THOMAS JEfferson.

Again, are we wrong in agitating the subject of slavery because slaveholders are opposed to such agitation? So were the great majority of them in 1785. Are we wrong in agitating the subject at the North, where there are none or very few slaves? Dr. Price was encouraged to write Anti-Slavery pamphlets, though he could find few readers at the South, and at the North emancipation was already in a train of accomplishment. At the North he had but here and there an opponent-few will pretend that our opponen's at the North are as rare as "robbers and murderers."

Again, we are accused of being young ourselves, and of endeavoring to excite the young. It was to the young, too, that JEFFERSON looked "with anxiety to turn the fate of this question." Much as we revere age, and we trust no one more sincerely honors the hoary head, that is found in the way of wisdom, we have no faith in age, for reform. The mature generation cannot be expected to rebuke itself, nor mar its own hold on immortality. The great men of ripe years have built their reputation upon, and mixed up their interests with existing institutions. They cannot be expected to pull down the old, now that it is too late to build up

anew. We think that a certain poet was not far from the truth when he sang' that

grave and hoary men were bribed to tell,

From seats where law is made the slave of wrong,

How glorious Athens in her splendor fell,

Because her sons were free-and that among

Mankind, the many to the few belong,

By Heaven, and Nature, and Necessity.

They said, that age was truth, and that the young

Marred with wild hopes the peace of slavery,

With which old times and men had quelled the vain and free.

We are blamed for meddling with the colleges. The youth at our colleges, it is said, have nothing to do with slavery. Alldiscussion of it interferes with the business of their education. Why should mere "boys" trouble their heads with grave matters of legislation-let them leave such things to their fathers. Instructors, too, are blamed if they venture to express unequivocal opinions in regard to slavery. It is traveling beyond their calling.-THOMAS JEFFERSON, in 1785, had other views on these points. He looked, as we do, to the young men of our colleges as the nation's hope, and wished to have them exhorted with all possible eloquence, with a view to their action on the decision of this important question. The hopes of Jefferson will yet be realized, though during his life time they waned exceedingly, as is evident from the following letter to Governor Cole of Illinois.

MONTICELLO, AUG. 25, 1814.

DEAR SIR,-Your favor of July 31st was duly received, and was read with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor to both the head and heart of the writer Mine, on the subject of the slavery of negroes, have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single effort,-nay, I fear, not much serious willingness to relieve them and ourselves from our present condition of moral and political reprobation.-From those of the former generation, who were in the fullness of age when I came into public life, which was while our controversy with England was on paper only, I soon saw that nothing was to be hoped. Nursed and educated in the daily habit of seeing the degraded condition, both bodily and mental, of those unfortunate beings, but not reflecting that that degradation was very much the work of themselves and their fathers, few minds have yet doubted but that they were as legitimate subjects of property as their horses or cattle. The quiet and monotonous course of colonial life had been disturbed by no alarm, and little reflection on the value of liberty. And when an alarm was taken at an enterprise of their own, it was not easy to carry them to the whole length of the principles which they invoked for themselves. In the first or second session of the legislature, after I became a member, I drew to this subject the attention of Colonel Bland, one of the oldest, ablest, and most respected members, and he undertook to move for certain moderate extensions of the protection of the laws to these people. I seconded his motion, and as a younger member, was more spared in the debate; but he was denounced as an enemy to his country, and was treated with the greatest indecorum. From an early stage of our Revolution, other and more distant duties were assigned to me; so that from that time till my return from Europe in 1789, and, I may say, till I returned to reside at home in 1809, I had little opportunity of knowing the progress of public sentiment here on this subject. I had always hoped that the younger generation,

receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast, and had become as it were the vital spirit of every American, in the generous temperament of youth, analagous to the motion of their blood, and above the suggestions of avarice, would have sympathised with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it. But my intercourse with them, since my return, has not been sufficient to ascertain that they have made towards this point the progress I had hoped.-Your solitary, but welcome voice, is the first which has brought this sound to my ear; and I have considered the general silence which prevails on this subject as indicating an apathy unfavorable to every hope. Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing in the march of time.

I am sensible of the partialitie with which you have looked towards me as the person who should undertake this salutary but arduous work. But this, my dear sir, is like bidding old Priam to buckle the armor of Hector "trementibus devo humeris, et inutile ferrum cingi." No: I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors and perils begat mutual confidence and influence. This enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers; and these are the only weapons of an old man.

It is an encouraging observation, that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end. We have proof of this in the history of the endeavors in the British Parliament to suppress that very trade which brought this evil on us. And you will be supported by the religious precept, "be not weary in well doing." That your success may be as speedy and complete, as it will be honorable and immortal consolation to yourself, I shall as fervently and sincerely pray as I assure you of my great friendship and reTHOMAS JEFFERSON. spect.

EDWARD COLE, ESQ.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

FRENCH SOCIETY FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.

From a report which gives the proceedings of this society down to the 10th of August, 1836, we are enabled to quote some particulars which may be interesting to our readers. The society was formed in 1834, and embraces among its members men of high political importanee. Its officers are:--

PRESIDENT.

The duke de BROGLIE, peer of France.

Vice Presidents.

M. PASSY, minis'er of commerce and public works.

M. ODILLON BARROT, member of the chamber of deputies.

Secretaries.

M. Count ALEXANDER DELABORDE, aide-de-camp of the king, member of the Institute, &c.

M. ISAMBERT, Counsellor of the court of cassation, and member of the chamber of deputies.

Treasurer.

M. A. THAYER, banker, Rue de Menars, Paris.