RESPECTED FRIEND,

The Acting Committee of the "Pennsylvania Society, for the Abolition of Slavery, and for the Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage," having been in*formed of thy being in this city, have directed me to present thee their thanks for thy benevolent exertions in the cause of the oppressed Africans-in having rescued several free persons of colour from slavery in the city of Washington. It gives me great pleasure to be the means of communicating their sentiments of thy philanthropic con

duct.

Thy assured Friend,

THOMAS SHIPLEY, Secretary to the Acting Committee.

Philadelphia, 7 mo. 5th, 1816.

DR. JESSE TORREY, JUN.

[REPLY.]

DEAR SIR,

Philadelphia, July 25th, 1816.

The consciousness of having performed our duty, to our Great Omnipresent Parent, and to our fellow depen dents on his bounty, is of itself a sufficient reward, to every one who estimates as he ought, the pleasure inseparable from acts of benevolence. The applause of practical friends of justice and humanity, cannot fail, however, of being additionally gratifying. Inform the Acting Committee of the " Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery," &c. that I have received with gratitude, and a due sense of its value, the flattering testimonial of their approbation of my conduct, which they have authorised you to present me.

May God long preserve your lives, and bless the cause in which you have volunteered your labors.

THOMAS SHIPLEY,

JESSE TORREY, JUN.

Sec'ry of Acting Committee, &c. }

The specimen here given of man-stealing, forms but a mere speck in an extensive system of this nefarious profession, which for many years has been, and continues to be pursued, with increasing vigor and pecuniary profit, in all the middle states. Even the city of Philadelphia is not exempt from this moral pestilence.

To enumerate all the horrid and aggravating instances of men-stealing, which are known to have occurred in the state of Delaware, within the recollection of many of the citizens of that state, would require a heavy volume. In many cases, whole families of free coloured people have been attacked in the night, beaten nearly to death with clubs, gagged and bound, and dragged into distant and hopeless captivity and slavery, leaving no traces behind, except the blood from their wounds.

During the last winter, since the seizure of the woman and infant, as related above, the house of a free black family was broken open, and its defenceless inhabitants treated in the manner just mentioned, except, that the mother escaped from their merciless grasp, while on their way to the state of Maryland. The plunderers, of whom there were nearly half a dozen, conveyed their prey upon horses; and the woman being placed on one of the horses, behind, improved an opportunity, as they were passing a house, and sprang off; and not daring to pursue her, they proceeded on, leaving her youngest child a little farther along by the side of the road, in expectation, it is supposed, that its cries would attract the mother, but she prudently waited until morning, and recovered it again in safety.

I consider myself more fully warranted in particularising this fact, from the circumstances of having been at New-Castle at the time that the woman was brought with her child, before the grand jury, for examination; and of having seen several of the persons against whom bills of indictment were found, on the charge of being engaged in the perpetration of the outrage; and also that one or two of them were the same who were accused of assisting in

seizing and carrying off the woman and child whom I discovered at Washington. The ingenuity and stratagems employed by kidnappers, in effecting their designs, are such as to prove, that the most consummate cunning is no evidence of wisdom or moral purity, nor incompatible with the most consummate villainy. A monster, in human shape, was detected in the city of Philadelphia, pursuing the occupation of courting and marrying mulatto women, and selling them as slaves. In his last attempt of this kind, the fact having come to the knowledge of the African population of this city, a mob was immediately collected, and he was only saved from being torn in atoms, by being deposited in the city prison. They have lately invented a method of attaining their objects, through the instrumentality of the laws :-Having selected a suitable free coloured person, to make a pitch upon, the conjuring kidnapper employs a confederate, to ascertain the distinguishing marks of his body, and then claims and obtains him as a slave, before a magistrate, by describing those marks, and proving the truth of his assertions, by his well-instructed accomplice.

From the best information that I have had opportunities to collect, in travelling by various routes through the states of Delaware and Maryland, and from statements of an ingenuous trader exclusively, (as I believe,) in lawful slaves, I am fully convinced that there are, at this time, within the jurisdiction of the United States, several thousands of legally free people of colour, toiling under the yoke of involuntary servitude, and transmitting the same fate to their posterity! If the probability of this fact could be authenticated to the recognition of the congress of the United States, it is presumed that its members, as agents of the constitution, and guardians of the public liberty, would, without hesitation, devise means for the restoration of those unhappy victims of violence and avarice, to their freedom and constitutional personal rights. This is a work, both from its nature and magnitude, impracticable to individuals or benevolent societies to accomplish; besides, it is perfectly a national business, and claims national interference, equally with the captivity of our sailors

H

in Algiers. The most successful, economical, politic, and just method of effecting this object would, perhaps, be to institute a board of commissioners, with authority to redeem every individual satisfactorily ascertained to be legally free, at a fair appraisal of the common value of a similar slave. Inquiries might be made in those districts where many coloured persons are known to have been kidnapped, and all possessors of slaves might be required to report the names, ages, and origin of their possession, of all the coloured persons in their custody, under legal affirmation, to the clerk of such county, to be transmitted by them to some department designated for the purpose in each state. The most of the present holders of these stolen men, probably acquired possession of them as innocently as they do of legal slaves, and an attempt by coercion, although justifiable with respect to. the captive, would render the enterprise abortive, through evasion, and probably would be more expensive if successful.

It is my impression, that the introduction of slaves for sale into almost every state in the union, is prohibited by specific statutes, and if an annual inspection and registering of all slaves were enforced, it would guarantee a compliance with such laws in a most effectual manner, and dissolve the man-hunting fraternity at once.

I shall close this subject, which indeed “is almost too deep and awful to look into,"* by declaring my solemn and decided conviction, that the abstract relative principles of moral and political justice; the sacred axioms of our Declaration of Independence, and of our Constitution, as well as sound policy and prudence, obligate this nation, most unequivocally, to ransom every human creature held in lawful bondage for life, against his will, without accusation of crime; at an equitable valuation of his worth to the possessor under existing laws, within the

* An expression of the late sagacious and inflexible patriot, John Clopton, while a representative in congress.

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jurisdiction of the republic; and to place him so nearly in a state of personal liberty, and the enjoyment of his natural and moral rights, as to secure to him the fruits or reward of his own labor, the benefits of mental improvement, and exemption from corporeal laceration. I do not consider it to be our duty to grant them a participation in the civil privileges of citizenship ;*-but, they have an incontestible claim to the protection of the laws, and to the common privileges of aliens and strangers, or at least of prisoners of war, so far as is compatible with the pubpeace and welfare. They are created a distinct race of people, and the designs of the Author of Nature ought not to be thwarted, by permitting their conjugal commixture with a race physically different. Without examining the problematical question of the inherent physical or moral superiority of either in the scale of being, (which is not relevant to the present subject,†) I must affirm, that in my humble view, there is both a moral and political propriety in prohibiting by energetic laws, the sexual commerce between the descendants of Europe and Africa, either by marriage, slavery, or otherwise. The extinction of slavery would promote this purpose far more than its toleration. Uncontrolled slavery, as facts have manifested, in the United States as well as the West Indies, facilitates and protects licentiousness, and à species of brutal debauchery, the consequences of which are deplorable and afflicting beyond description.t

*It would be equally as absurd to do this, as it would to import 2,000,000 prisoners of war from Turkey or China, and make citizens of them.

"It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth, were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to know, that all are the work of an Almighty Hand."

[From the first section of the Preamble to the Pennsylvania act for the Abolition of Slavery, before referred to.]

M'Gurran Coulon, in his " Observations on the Insurrection of the Negroes in the Island of St. Domingo," read before the National Assembly of France, attributes the troubles of that island," above all, to the injustice of which the whites have been guilty, in refusing