'
"'Our English friends, in their zeal against American slavery,' said a
young lawyer, 'seem to forget that the English government, at the Peace
of Utrecht, agreed to furnish Spain with four thousand negroes annually
for thirty years.'
"'Poor human nature!' said the Judge. 'What should we all do, if we had
not the sins of others to repent of and bewail?'
"There was a strong friend of temperance in the company from a
north-western state. Travelling in the South for pleasure, some time
ago, he was immediately struck with the comparative absence of
intemperance among the slaves. On learning that the laws forbid the sale
of intoxicating drink to them, and thinking of four millions of people
in this land as delivered, in a great degree, from the curse of
drunkenness, he says that he exclaimed: 'Pretty well for the "sum of all
villanies." The class of people in the United States best defended
against drunkenness are the slaves!' Some admonished him that the
slaves did get liquor, and that white men ventured to tempt them. 'I
don't care for that,' said he; 'of course, there are exceptions; the
"sum of all villanies" is a Temperance Society!'
"A Northern gentleman, travelling through the South, said, 'As to the
feelings of the North respecting a possible insurrection, I am
satisfied, since visiting in different parts of the South, that a very
common apprehension with us, respecting your liability to trouble from
this source, is exaggerated by fancy.
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