The free people of color in Baltimore, are alive to the importance of education.  One individual told us, that in distributing about two hundred and fifty religious books, which had been sent to be gratuitously supplied to the poor of this class, he found only five or six families, in which the children were not learning to read and write.

While in Baltimore, the inquiries I made respecting Elisha Tyson, fully confirmed the impression I have attempted to convey of his extraordinary character; perhaps no one has so good a claim to be considered the Granville Sharp of North America, and I have inserted in another place some particulars drawn from his biography, which will be found full of interest.[A] I am glad also to state, that if there is no one citizen of Baltimore on whom his mantle rests, there are yet some who are active in preventing the illegal detention of negroes, and of bringing such cases before the proper tribunal.  One of these related the following case of recent occurrence.  A woman, who was the wife of a free man, and the mother of four children, and who had long believed herself legally free, was claimed by the heir of her former master.  The case was tried, and his right of property in her and her children affirmed.  He then sold the family to a slave dealer for a thousand dollars; of whom the husband of the woman re-purchased them, (his own wife and children,) for eleven hundred dollars, to repay which he bound himself to labor for the person from whom it was borrowed, for twelve years.  Yet this is but a mitigated instance of oppression in this Christian country.

[Footnote A:  See Appendix D.]

The religious public of this city appear to be doing nothing collectively, to abolish or ameliorate slavery, and with the exception of “Friends,” and the body who have lately seceded from them, I fear that all are more or less implicated in its actual guilt.  I was informed not long since, even the Roman Catholics, who are more free from the contamination than many other religious bodies, had, in some part of the State, sold several of their own church members, and applied the proceeds to the erection of a place of worship.  We called upon the Roman Catholic Bishop to inquire into the truth of this, but he was from home.  When at Philadelphia afterwards, in conversation with a priest, I gave the particulars, and said I should be glad to be furnished with the means of contradicting it.  I have not heard from him since.

I am informed that the Yearly Meeting of “Friends” has advised its members not to unite with the anti-slavery societies, and has latterly discontinued petitioning the legislature for the abolition of the internal slave trade, and the amelioration of the slave code; such is the prevailing influence of a pro-slavery atmosphere.  The code in question has of late years been rendered more severe, and the legal emancipation of slaves more difficult; yet I was pleased to learn that public opinion has in this respect counteracted legislative tyranny; that slavery has in fact become milder, and the number of manumissions has not lessened.