3.  “RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the suspension of the said article would be equally advantageous to the territory, to the states from whence the negroes would be brought, and to the negroes themselves. The states which are overburthened with negroes which they cannot comfortably support; * * and THE NEGRO HIMSELF WOULD EXCHANGE A SCANTY PITTANCE OF THE COARSEST FOOD, for a plentiful and nourishing diet; and a situation which admits not the most distant prospect of emancipation, for one which presents no considerable obstacle to his wishes.”

4.  “RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that a copy of these resolutions be delivered to the delegate to Congress from this territory, and that he be, and he hereby is, instructed to use his best endeavors to obtain a suspension of the said article.”

J.B.  THOMAS, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

PIERRE MINARD, President pro tem. of the Legislative Council.  Vincennes, Dec. 20, 1806.

“Forwarded to the Speaker the United States’ Senate, by WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, Governor”—­American State Papers vol 1. p. 467.

MONSIEUR C.C.  ROBIN, who resided in Louisiana from 1802 to 1806, and published a volume containing the results of his observations there, thus speaks of the condition of the slaves: 

“While they are at labor, the manager, the master, or the driver has commonly the whip in hand to strike the idle.  But those of the negroes who are judged guilty of serious faults, are punished twenty, twenty-five, forty, fifty, or one hundred lashes.  The manner of this cruel execution is as follows:  four stakes are driven down, making a long square; the culprit is extended naked between these stakes, face downwards; his hands and his feet are bound separately, with strong cords, to each of the stakes, so far apart that his arms and legs, stretched in the form of St. Andrew’s cross, give the poor wretch no chance of stirring.  Then the executioner, who is ordinarily a negro, armed with the long whip of a coachman, strikes upon the reins and thighs.  The crack of his whip resounds afar, like that of an angry cartman beating his horses.  The blood flows, the long wounds cross each other, strips of skin are raised without softening either the hand of the executioner or the heart of the master, who cries ’sting him harder.’

“The reader is moved; so am I:  my agitated hand refuses to trace the bloody picture, to recount how many times the piercing cry of pain has interrupted my silent occupations; how many times I have shuddered at the faces of those barbarous masters, where I saw inscribed the number of victims sacrificed to their ferocity.

“The women are subjected to these punishments as rigorously as the men—­not even pregnancy exempts them; in that case, before binding them to the stakes, a hole is made in the ground to accommodate the enlarged form of the victim.