FROM THE RICHMOND INQUIRER.

Some of the Evils of Slave Labor, and Decline of Lands in many of the early settled parts of Virginia.

MESSRS. EDITORS-It has been my desire for a length of time, that some person would call the attention of the people of Virginia to the consideration of the decline of that part of the state where the cultivation of the earth has been chiefly performed by slaves.

It will appear from observation, that the people in settling the state, have made choice of the best lands for their slaves to cultivate, one effect of which has been to destroy large forests of delightful woodland, containing timbers of incalculable value. This has been done by belting, burning, and other expeditious means of destroying timber and fuel.

The best land in Virginia, except creek and river low grounds, (so far as my observation extends) are generally rolling; and what has been the effect on them of slave cultivation, and the want of proper management and due attention by the owners? Behold a country once fertile-no -now washed in numberless places into gullies large enough to bury a ship! without soil except in the bottoms, and without timber to enclose them; the homes of our fathers are forsaken by their children; and when life lasts longer than the land and the timber, want at length overcomes love of country; and all, both young and old, are found forsaking the land of their birth, and seeking a home in the unknown regions of the West. In the short period of thirty years. which is within my remembrance, many of the above changes have taken place of my own knowledge, in certain neighborhoods of land, originally fertile, soft, and easy to cultivate. I, therefore, think it requires no prophet to tell that if the present and former state of husbandry is not altered, a large portion of the once valuable lands of Virginia must become a deserted wilderness; for instead of making our lands better from the time of their being cleared, they are daily growing poorer from constant and bad tillage, close grazing and the washing of heavy rains! How unlike some of our sister states, having no slaves, where many generations of the same family prosper on the same spot of land!

From these considerations, (even if we lay aside the matter of insurrections, &c.) I should like to suggest a few inquiries for public deliberation:

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1. Is not slavery the principal cause of the decline of the lands in certain parts of Virginia?

2. Does it not induce a great many of the white people to dislike labor? And does it not, likewise, have a great influence over the morals of many of the white people of Virginia, by encouraging idleness, gluttony, and drunkenness, the companions of every vice and dissipation, and the forerunners of poverty, misery, and disease; as dyspepsia, melancholy, gout-in short, all the worst forms which are named in the Doctor's vocabulary, and which bring human life to a premature end?

3. Is not slavery the principal cause (directly and indirectly) of emigration from Virginia, and of our not having a more dense white population?

4. Is it not high time for the people of Virginia to urge their state legislature to adopt some plan gradually to lessen the slave population, either with or without a final view to abolition?

5. Would it not be expedient to tax slaves so heavily as to lessen their value to a considerable degree; to apply that tax, first, to the removal and colonization of all such as may be given up by their owners. Secondly, to the removal of all free Negroes disposed to go. And thirdly, (if a fund can be raised large enough) to the purchase and colonization of slaves; taking care in the meantime to provide for the whole expences for the government of the state by a tax on other property?

6. Would not such a tax on slaves, by reducing their price, increase the southern trade to an extent greatly beneficial to Virginia?

Suppose the state to raise 100,000 dollars annually, and the price of Negroes to average $200, including the expense of colonizing; this would clear us of 5000 a-year; and if the southern trade is not stopped, it would, likely, clear us of a greater number than we could colonize.

A petition is circulating in the county of Buckingham, which will be presented to the next legislature of Virginia, in accordance with the plan recommended by Mr. Jefferson, [see his memoirs, vol. 4, p. 289,] to emancipate the after-born of the slaves. All inhabitants of Virginia are earnestly solicited to unite in petitioning the legislature for that purpose.

From the Richmond Whig.

THE great questions forced upon public attention by the late events in Southampton, are exciting much solicitude and investigation, in different parts of the state. There seems to be a general expectation, a general wish, that the approaching legislature shall take the subject into serious and solemn consideration. Upon the event of its deliberations, hundreds of the most valuable of the citizens of Virginia are awaiting, to determine if they shall continue her citizens, or abandon her soil. That which was esteemed too delicate to mention, before the occurrences in Southampton, is now freely and unreservedly Canvassed. It is desirable that the members of the General Assembly should turn their reflections upon the subject while yet at home, and ascertain as explicitly as possible what their constituents approve, that when the time for action arrives they may not, as is too often the case, do nothing for fear of doing wrong. Every man feels the force of Mr. Jefferson's metaphor, that "we have the wolf by the ears," and its increasing truth. There is a general acknowledgment that something ought to be, and must be done. It is not the non-slaveholder, or the visionary philanthropist, or the fanatic, who now says this, but the mass of slaveholders themselves. It is their question-nobody else has any, or but little concern with it; and we are glad that it has both originated with them, and receives their intense consideration.

If nothing else can be done, something may at least be effected in the im provement of the Police, by which the powers now exercised by the Patrole may be rendered a means of safety to the community, instead of being the instrument of tyranny and exasperation. 2*

VOL. 111.

From the Richmond Whig

TO THE CITIZENS OF VIRGINIA.

A MEMORIAL is circulating amongst you, the design of which is to call the attention of the ensuing legislature to the subject of the bond and free colored population of this state, and to urge upon them the necessity of devising some means by which the number of slaves may be gradually diminished, and the free blacks removed beyond our borders. If it be conceded that this is a subject which demands the interposition of legislative power, it will not be denied that it ought to be acted on promptly;-1st, because the evil sought to be remedied is a growing one, and 2d, because a more auspicious moment for action than the present can never arise; and if the correctness of this position be admitted, the only question to be decided will be, in what form it should be made to approach the legisla ure, so as most effectually to secure the adoption of prompt and efficient measures. The form of memorial alone is deemed inefficient, because it carries no authority with it. In ordinary cases it might suffice. But the subject now to be discussed and disposed of is not of that character; and it is not presumable that your representatives, without your special instructions, would take one decisive step, in a matter of great magnitude and of so much vital importance in all its bearings. With a view to avoid all unnecessary delay, it is proposed that meetings of such of you as by law are qualified to vote, to be held in all the counties of the state, on their re spective court days, in December, to deliberate upon the momentous subject, and to give such a direction to it as you may deem most proper. By adopting the plan here proposed you will not only with more certainty and more promptness than you could by the adoption of any other course attain your end; but you will stamp upon a law, enacted in obedience to such an act of sovereignty, a character that could not by any other means be conferred upon it, which would elevate it far above any exceptions that might lie against an ordinary act of legislation, and give to the great cause of colonization an impetus that might continue to act whilst there remained any thing to be acted upon?

A NATIVE OF EASTERN VIRGINIA

November 10, 1831,

From the same.

TO THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA. HAVING seen several memorials in the newspapers from Lynchburg and Northampton, and indications of others from Westmoreland, and several other parts of Virginia, the objects of which are to rid the state of the free colored population, I have felt disposed to offer a few crude remarks, with the hope that they may tend in some degree to call public attention to the subject.

It is evident that these measures have grown out of the late melancholy oeQurrence in Southampton, and are intended by those who advocate them, to guard against future calamities of a like nature; and so far as they are supported by facts, I cordially unite with them; but I have been induced to look for the Causes which render this particular measure so important, without being able to find them. In the county of Southampton, the immediate scene of all the horrid murders which were perpetrated, there are a considerable number of free blacks; yet, all the vigilance of legal investigation, and individual exertion, in bringing the offenders to justice, have hitherto succeeded in detecting but two individuals amongst this numerous class of persons who were engaged in the dreadful work, or who have been proven as accessary to it, and these men had slaves for their wives, which will satisfactorily account for the course which they took. This circumstance, taken in connexion with the fact that the extensive plans which were laid in North Carolina, were disclosed by a free Negro, go far, in my view, to weaken the importance of the measure, as calculated to effect the object,

While I regard the free blacks, in most cases, as a nuisance on our society, and their removal as an object much to be desired, I believe, that by far the greatest number of them are too well satisfied with their present condition, to risk the chance of bettering it by joining in any insurrectionary plans against the whites. Where are we to look for the evidence that their removal from the state is the measure to effect the object professed to be aimed at-namely, security? On the contrary, I am induced to believe, (and I am not alone in this opinion) that how much soever their removal, on other accounts, may be desired, yet, in this particular, their presence amongst us has contributed, and will contribute to the security of our inhabitants.

Memorials are in circulation in many of the counties of Eastern Virginia, having for their object the reduction of the whole colored population of the state; some of them looking forward to a period when slavery shall cease to exist amongst us, thus striking at the root of the evil.

The proposition from the county of Buckingham, adopts the plan recommended by Mr. Jefferson, which is to colonize all slaves born after a certain period, to be fixed by the legislature, without the limits of the United States. No plan would succeed more effectually than this; yet I do not detract from the wisdom and experience of that great and profound statesman, by saying, that under existing circumstances, some plan is wanting to take effect at an earlier period than that recommended by Mr. Jefferson.

Another memorial, originated in the county of Hanover, proposes the laying a moderate tax on slaves and free negroes, in order to raise a fund for the removal of such as would be voluntarily surrendered to the state, by their owners. (and there will, no doubt, be many such,) in order to their being sent to Liberia. This memorial also proposes that a certain portion of the free colored popula tion of the state should also be sent from the state annually. It may be objected to this last mentioned memorial, that the object cannot be effected without making the tax so great as to be burthensome. This objection may be obviated by hiring out such as are given up, until a sum sufficient to defray the expense of their removal, respectively, is raised. But my principal design in mentioning the memorials from Hanover and Buckingham in connexion, is, to propose that the propositions be united-we wish to see the work progressing, and circumstances require that something should be done, and all agree that something must be done.

By a reference to the census of 1790, 1800, and 1810, it will be perceived that the white population of Eastern Virginia increased 21,886 in the ten years preceding 1800, and that the increase for ten suoceeding years was only 2,164! It will be recollected that in 1800 a plot of an insurrection was discovered in the neighborhosd of Richmond, and to this circumstance we may attribute much of the diminished increase of the white population, from 1800 to 1810. It is true that the fertile soil of Ohio held out inducements to those disposed to emigrate, but the fear of consequences from the existing evil, and the cheering prospect that they would not encounter it there, are known to have had a powerful effect in causing the emigration. If the discovery of a plot, in which no lives were lost, produced such an effect, what are we to expect from the recent occurrences in Southampton, where more than sixty persons perished under their hands? The black population of the state has been increasing for the last 40 years in the ratio of 3 to 1, over our white population. The fact is notorious, and the effects will be sure. If we wish to give confidence to our inhabitants, and peace and security ro our firesides, we must adopt some plan more effectual than that of merely removing the free blacks. This part of the state has been thrown into great commotion, and how needless soever the general alarm may have been, yet it has been sufficient to cause many families to leave the state, and many more are making preparations to follow. Under these circumstances the next legislature is looked to with intense anxiety, and should it fail to pass a salutary law upon the subject, and such as will hold out a well-grounded hope that we may rest secure from future scenes of carnage, and awful apprehensions of them, thousands of our citizens will seek safety beyond the reach of

this acknowledged evil. Our wives and our children are dear to us, and their peace and repose should be our care. Let us, then, labor together in this common cause, which will insure present comfort to our inhabitants, and future prosperity and greatness to our beloved Virginia.

Hanover County, 14th November, 1831.

P. Q. O,

PRAYER-No. III. AND LETTER TO MR. COHEN-No. V.. Dear Sir,-PRAYER to the Supreme necessarily must have been subsequent to, and regulated by, divine promises. If God had not first promised, no rational being could have asked for any thing. Prayer is, then, a moral positive, rather than a moral natural institution. Like sacrifice and the consecration of the seventh day, it never would have been thought of unless previously instituted by divine. authority. Its prevalence among all nations, like sacrifice and holy time, only proves that the founders of all nations are from one family, and that that family was favored with divine communications.

Let him who doubts the truth of these positions, which we think it here unnecessary to prove, ask himself, could he think of asking any thing from a being wholly unknown to him, and could he think of asking any thing which he had not some evidence to think that being whom he addresses was both able and willing to bestow. The existence, power, and will of God, are therefore supposed to be known prior to any petition which a rational being can present. But more is supposed than the mere existence, power, and will of God; his omnipresence, his omniscience, his benevolence, his relation to us, or rather our relation to him as our creator and preserver, are equally necessary to be known, prior to our approaching him in the attitude and character of suppliants. Paul, a Jew, addressing Jews as men, as well as christians, said, "He that approaches God, must first believe that he exists, that he is a rewarder of them who diligently seek him."

These things premised, it will follow from our own reason or apprehension of the nature of things, that the revealed will of God is both the reason and the measure of our prayers. That it is the reason, is confessed by all; and it must, upon a little reflection, be equally apparent, that it must be the measure of our petitions. No man could reasonably ask to become young again, or for a change of his color, stature, parentage, country, &c. and not because he cannot desire such changes, but because no promises are given authorizing such requests. He might wish for two Moons or two Suns, or a visit to Jupiter or Saturn; but for these he cannot rationally, or according to promise or revelation, ask. It will be conceded, then, that the promises of God are the measure, as well as the reason, of our suppli cations.

Every age of the world, the Patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Chris tian, has had its own promises just as it has had its own attributes, character, and circumstances. Hence there were some things for