people and other foreigners who came among them, became their merchants, and fuddenly grew rich. There muft, doubtlefs, be an unhappy influence on the manners of the people produced by the existence of flavery among them. The whole commerce between master and flave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous paffions, the most unremitting defpotiim on the one part, and degrading fubmiffion on the other. The children. fee this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him, from his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he fees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his felf-love, for reftraining the intemperance of paffion towards his flave, it should always be a fufficient one that his child is prefent; but generally it is not fufficient. The parent ftorms, the child looks on, catches the linea❤ ments of wrath, puts on the fame airs in the circle of fmaller flaves, gives a loose to his worst of paffions, and thus nurfed, educated, and daily exercifed in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by fuch circumftances. And with what execration fhould the ftatefman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms thofe into defpots, and these into enemies; deftroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if a flave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miferable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry alfo is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himfelf who can make another labour for him. This is fo true, that of the proprietors of flaves a yery fmall proportion, indeed, are ever feen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought fecure when they have removed their only firm bafis, a conviction in the minds of the people that thefe liberties are of the gift of God; that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? It is impoffible to be temperate and to pursue this fubject through the various confiderations of policy, of morals, of hiftory, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will ultimately force their way into every one's mind; a change in this State has been per ceptible ceptible ever fince the establishment of the prefent government. The fpirit of the mafter has abated, and that of the flave arifen from the duft, his condition is now mollified, and the way at length prepared by the federal government for a total emancipation, and this with the confent of the mafters, and not by their extirpation. Before the general government of America undertook the noble work of cutting up flavery by the roots, by laying the foundation of a total emancipation, the State of Virginia had as a body politic, made fome advances; and fome private gentlemen had likewife exerted themselves in a very confiderable degree, in the cause of the oppreffed Africans. A Mr. Robert Carter, of Nomina, in this State, in the year 1790, emancipated no less a number than four hundred and forty-two flaves. This is a facrifice on the altar of humanity of perhaps an hundred thousand dollars. Vote him a triumph, crown him with laurels, and let the millions liften while he fings "I would not have a flave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I fleep, I had much rather be MYSELF the flave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on HIM."* TRADE AND MANUFACTURES. Before the war, the inhabitants of this State paid but little attention to the manufacture of their own cloathing. It has been thought they ufed to import as much as feven-eights of their cloathing, and that they now manufacture three-quarters of it. We have before mentioned that confiderable quantities of iron are manufactured in this State. To thefe we may add the manufacture of lead; befides which they have few others of confequence. The people are much attached to agriculture, and prefer foreign manufactures. Before the war this State exported, communibus annis, according to the beft information that could be obtained, as follows: * As a proof that these are the fentiments of this gentleman, we beg leave to introduce the following quotation from a letter of his on the fituation of the flaves, &c. in this State, and the abolition of the flave trade, written to a Diffenting Minifter. "The toleration of flavery indicates VERY GREAT DEPRAVITY OF MIND," &c. Tobacco I The amount of exports from this State in the year fucceeding October 1, 1790, confifting chiefly of articles mentioned in the foregoing table, was three million one hundred and thirty-one thousand two hundred and twenty-feven dollars. About forty thousand hogfheads of tobacco only were exported this year. In the year 1758, this State exported feventy thoufand hogfheads of tobacco, which was the greateft quantity ever produced in this country in one year. But its culture has faft declined fince the commencement of the war, and that of wheat taken its place. The price which it commands at market will not enable the planter to cultivate it. Were the fupply ftill to depend on Virginia and Maryland alone, as its culture becomes more difficult, this price would rife, fo as to enable the planter to furmount those difficulties and to live. But the western country on the Miffiffippi, and the midlands of Georgia, having fresh and fertile lands in abundance, and a hotter sun, are able to underfell these two States, and will oblige them in time to abandon the raising of tobacco altogether. And a happy obligation for them it will be. It is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness. This fum is equal to eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds Virginia money, fix undred and fifty-feven thousand one hundred forty-two guincas. Thofe Thofe employed in it are in a continued State of exertion beyond the powers of nature to fupport. Little food of any kind is raised by them; fo that the men and animals on thefe farms are badly fed, and the earth is rapidly impoverished. The cultivation of wheat is the reverfe in every circumstance. Befides cloathing the earth with her- . bage, and preferving its fertility, it feeds the labourers plentifully, requires from them only a moderate toil, except in the season of harvest, raises great numbers of animals for food and fervice, and diffuses plenty and happiness among the whole. It is easier to raise an hundred bushels of wheat than a thousand weight of tobacco, and it is worth more when produced. It is not easy to say what are the articles either of neceffity, comfort, or luxury, which cannot be raised here, as every thing hardier than the olive, and as hardy as the fig, may be raised in the open air. Sugar, coffee, and tea, indeed, are not between thefe limits; and habit having placed them among the neceffaries of life with the wealthy, as long as thefe habits remain, they must go for them to thofe ountries which are able to furnish them. COLLEGES, ACADEMIES, LITERATURE, &c. The college of William and Mary was founded in the time of King William and Queen Mary, who granted to it twenty thoufand acres of land, and a penny a pound duty on certain tobaccoes exported from Virginia and Maryland, which had been levied by the statute of 25 Car. II. The Affembly alfo gave it, by temporary laws, a duty on liquors imported, and fkins and furs exported. From these refources it received upwards of three thousand pounds. The buildings are of brick, fufficient for an indifferent accommodation of perhaps one hundred ftudents. By its charter it was to be under the government of twenty vifitors, who were to be its legiflators, and to have a prefident and fix profeffors, who were incorporated: it was allowed a representative in the General Affembly. Under this charter, a pro fefforfhip of the Greek and Latin languages, a profeffor of mathema tics, one of moral philofophy, and two of divinity, were established. To these were annexed, for a fixth profefforship, a confiderable donation by a Mr. Boyle of England, for the inftruction of the Indians, and their converfion to Christianity: this was called the professorship of Brafferton, from an estate of that name in England, purchased with the monies given. The admiffion of the learners of Latin and VOL. III. Q Greek Greek filled the college with children: this rendering it disagreea. ble to the young gentlemen already prepared for entering on the fciences, they defifted from reforting to it, and thus the schools for mathematics and moral philosophy, which might have been of fome service, became of very little ufe. The revenues too were exhausted in accommodating those who came only to acquire the rudiments of science. After the prefent revolution, the visitors having no power to change those circumftances in the constitution of the college which were fixed by the charter, and being therefore confined in the number of profefforships, undertook to change the objects of the profefforfhips. They excluded the two schools for divivinity, and that for the Greek and Latin languages, and fubftituted others; fo that at prefent they stand thus-a profefforfhip for law and police; anatomy and medicine; natural philosophy and mathematics; moral philofophy, the law of nature and nations, the fine arts; modern languages; for the Brafferton. Measures have been taken to increase the number of profefforships, as well for the purpose of fubdividing those already inftituted, as of adding others for other branches of fcience. To the profefforships usually established in the univerfities of Europe, it would seem proper to add one for the ancient languages and literature of the north, on account of their connection with our own languages, laws, customs, and history. The purposes of the Brafferton inftitution would be better answered by maintaining a perpetual miffion among the Indian tribes; the object of which, befides inftructing them in the principles of Christianity, as the founder requires, fhould be to collect their traditions, laws, cuftoms, languages, and other circumstances which might lead to a discovery of their relation to one another, or defcent from other nations. When these objects are accomplished with one tribe, the miffionary might pass on to another. The college edifice is a huge, mifhapen pile; "which but that it has a root, would be taken for a brick kiln." In 1787, there were about thirty young gentlemen members of this college, a large proportion of which were law ftudents. The academy in Prince Ed ward county has been erected into a college by the name of Hampden Sydney college. It has been a flourishing feminary, but is now faid to be on the decline. There are feveral academies in Virginia; one at Alexandria, one at Norfolk, and others in other places. |