first.  However, his speeches are of a high order, some think them too high, and complain that he is too much of a cloud-traveller, and when he descends from these aerial flights and cloudy thrones, they are unwilling to admit that he can be practical.  If Mr. Burritt should prove as good a statesman as a theorist, he would be an exception to most who belong to the aerial school.  As a writer he stands deservedly high.  In his “Sparks from the Anvil,” and “Voice from the Forge,” are to be found as fine pieces as have been produced by any writer of the day.  His “Drunkard’s Wife” is the most splendid thing of the kind in the language.  His stature is of the middle size, head well developed, with eyes deeply set, and a prepossessing countenance, though not handsome; he wears an exterior of remarkable austerity, and everything about him is grave, even to his smile.  Being well versed in the languages, ancient and modern, he does not lack variety or imagination, either in his public addresses or private conversation; yet it would be difficult to find a man with a better heart, or sweeter spirit, than Elihu Burritt.

LETTER XXII.

A Narrative of American Slavery.

Although the first slaves, introduced into the American Colonies from the coast of Africa, were negroes of a very dark complexion with woolly hair, and it was thought that slavery would be confined to the blacks, yet the present slave population of America is far from being black.  This change in colour, is attributable, solely to the unlimited power which the slave owner exercises over his victim.  There being no lawful marriage amongst slaves, and no encouragement to slave women to be virtuous and chaste, there seems to be no limits to the system of amalgamation carried on between master and slave.  This accounts for the fact, that most persons who go from Europe, or from the Free States, into Carolina or Virginia, are struck with the different shades of colour amongst the slaves.  On a plantation employing fifty slaves, it is not uncommon to see one third of them mulattoes, and some of these nearly white.

In the year 1831, there resided in the state of Virginia, a slave who was so white, that no one would suppose for a moment that a drop of African blood coursed through his veins.  His skin was fair, hair soft, straight, fine and white; his eyes blue, nose prominent, lips thin; his head well formed, forehead high and prominent; and he was often taken for a white free person, by those who did not know him.  This made his condition as a slave still more intolerable; for one so white, seldom ever receives fair treatment at the hands of his fellow slaves; and the whites usually regard such slaves as persons, who, if not often flogged and otherwise ill treated, to remind them of their condition, would soon “forget” that they were slaves, and “think themselves as good as white folks.”  During that year,