in the trial of a negro in a court of Louisiana, composed of six persons, if the court be equally divided, the accused party is pronounced guilty! Various other cases, requiring immediate reform and alteration, are to be found in the codes of the other states, but none so flagrant or revolting as these.

HAMILTON.

Philadelphia, Nov. 26, 1827.

SLAVE LABOUR EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTURES.

The project of employing slave labour in the manufacture of coarse cottons and other coarse goods, which is now agitated in Virginia, and some of the other southern states, is pregnant with the most salutary consequences to those states, and bids fair to extricate them from the difficulties under which they labour, and have laboured for years, and to diffuse prosperity far and wide wherever it is adopted. It will turn to a valuable account a great mass of labour, a large portion of which is now wholly unemployed. Among its beneficial results will be, to render the slaves more valuable; to secure them more indulgent treatment; to improve their faculties; and to accelerate their fitness for final emancipation.

Its effects, moreover, on the nation at large, will be highly salutary, by removing the jealousies and heart-burnings that prevail on the subject of the protecting system, which is very crroneously supposed, in the southern states, to operate not merely to the exclusive benefit of the middle and eastern states, but to the great injury of the southern. It will, therefore, tend to knit more closely the bonds of union between the different sections of the country.

It is not too much, considering the numerous benefits of this project, to say, that he who first broached it, may be regarded as a public benefactor.

In order to test the advantages of the project, I shall institute a comparison between the result of slave labour thus employed,

many of which ought not to be tolerated for a single day, and which are totally unnecessary for the security of the person or property of the master. This work is earnestly recommended to the dispassionate consideration of slave owners generally.

and free labour. However, not being a manufacturer, nor an owner of slaves, I do not pretend to critical accuracy; but shall endeavour to approximate to it as near as possible, inviting those better acquainted with the subject, to canvass my statement rigorously, and, should it be found incorrect, as it probably will be, to point out its errors. My chief object is to provoke discussion, whereby the truth may and must eventually be elicited, on a subject not yielding in importance to any that has for a long time occupied public attention.

I shall assume, on the one side, a cotton manufactory, with 100 free operatives, principally young females, earning on the average 200 cents per week; and, on the other, one worked by as many slaves, young and old, who do only three-fourths as much as the whites, i. e. to average that quantity of work, of which the wages of free labour would be a dollar and fifty cents per week.

FREE LABOUR.

100 operatives earning on an average $2 per week-100 × 2 × 52 = per annum in wages,

$10,400

Suppose the goods produced equal to five times the amount of the wages, the result would be

$52,000

Suppose 12 per cent. on $52,000, for profit, wear and tear, and for

100 slaves, whose work, if executed by free persons, would cost for

Thus it appears, if my calculation be not extremely erroneous, that slave labour would, contrary to the prevailing opinion, be more profitable than free.

I take no account, on either side, of the interest of the capital, fixed or circulating.

This plan will make an immense difference in the prospects of those slave-holding states which may adopt it. The labour of slaves of both sexes, who may be employed in this way, particularly including the very young ones, cannot at present average more than ten dollars per annum; but suppose we allow twenty dollars, the 100 slaves, taken into the preceding estimate, would produce only two thousand dollars per annum. Whereas, employed in manufactures, they would produce, according to the same estimate, more than treble that sum. This regards merely the individual owners of slaves. Higher considerations arise, as regards the slave states. The money now employed to purchase the contemplated articles in the other states, or in Europe, whereby the southern states are impoverished, will be retained at home, to invigorate their industry, and enrich their citizens. Another consideration demands serious attention. This process will diminish the number of the cultivators of the soil; of course diminish the gluts of the market; and, further, increase the home market for their edible products, by the conversion of producers into consumers.

Some of the most valuable water-power in the United States, perhaps in the world, is to be found in Virginia and Maryland; provisions are cheap; the raw material is raised on the spot; the labour proposed to be employed is a drug; the climate is milder, and therefore obstructions to the use of water-power are rare. These are the grand elements on which to erect the noble edifice of southern prosperity.

I anticipate one objection-that slaves cannot be converted into manufacturers. This objection is set aside by the fact, that in many places they are thus converted. In Kentucky, there are large, extensive, and profitable manufactories of cotton bagging, the operatives of which are, without a single exception, slaves. There are various manufactories in other parts of the western states, conducted in a similar mode. These facts, I trust, settle the question beyond controversy. Philadelphia, Oct. 2, 1827.

From the Port Folio, for Jan. 1810.

JUNIUS.

"Curs'd be the verse, how smooth soe'er it flow,

That tends to make one honest man my foe."

This

With the fame of Junius the world has resounded. fame, acquired in a period of turbulence and faction, still gives currency, after a lapse of forty years, to a work, the basis of which is a relentless malice, a work the objects and topics whereof have, with few exceptions, ceased to interest mankind.

After the lapse of time which I have mentioned, Junius is still unknown. Respecting no writer whatever has public curiosity ever been more highly excited. The most unceasing and laboured efforts have been made to discover him. All have been totally ineffectual. He still eludes, and, for a reason which I shall suggest, will probably forever elude, the utmost endeavours of the curious. Numbers of persons, probably a dozen at least, have been at different times named as the author. Those who have brought forward Single Speech Hamilton, Lord Sackville, Boyd, Lord Chatham, Sir Philip Francis, &c. &c. as the writers of Junius, have, in support of their respective hypotheses, adduced various secret anecdotes, and mysterious. circumstances, some of them sufficiently plausible to acquire credit for a time. Each tale has had its day and its partisans, but finally sunk with the others into one common cave of oblivion. The uncertainty is at this moment no less than when the officers of justice beset Woodfall's doors in quest of the author or publisher.

Surprise has been expressed at this concealment. It has been regarded as wonderful, that "the love of Fame," which, according to Young, is "the universal passion," has not induced the writer to come forward, and claim the laurels that have so long courted his acceptance. Junius has been regarded as a most marked exception to the position of the author of the Night Thoughts.

This idea is incorrect. Junius appears to have had a much more accurate idea of the intrinsic merits of his productions than his cotemporaries generally. He well knew, what must be obvious to every person who reads these celebrated letters with impartiality, and free from the bias of prejudice-He well knew, I say, that their chief, almost their only merit, consists in a style most elaborately refined and elegant; and that whatever

laurels he might acquire for his brows, would but poorly compensate for the reprobation which his rancour would attract, Perhaps, further, a discovery of his name would enhance the public opinion of his malignity. Perhaps it might shed strong light upon some circumstance which would more fully evince the baseness of the writer-some sacred confidences infamously violated, some important favours perfidiously repaid with outrageous malice. He did not choose to sacrifice his heart to his head. This, I trust, plausibly enough accounts for his long concealment. If this hypothesis be admitted, his address is on a level with his virulence.

“A word at parting" on the subject of his talents. I believe they have had more than their due share of veneration. I have never seen or heard any remarks on the length of time spent upon the letters of Junius. Yet this appears a proper subject of consideration, and must, to a certain degree, affect a just estimate of the abilities of the writer. Suppose two works of exactly equal merit to be produced by A and B. Suppose A to employ three hours upon his, and B to require three weeks for exactly the same quantity. I think it can hardly be doubted, that in a distribution of the palm for intellectual powers, the claim of A would very far outweigh that of B.

Let us try Junius's claims with a little reference to this position, and I think it cannot fail to lower the idea of his talents considerably in public estimation.

There are in the collection sixty-nine letters. Five are signed by William Draper, three by John Horne, sixteen by Philo Junius, and forty-four by Junius. The time embraced in the publication is exactly three years, as will appear by the annexed