ited States. It is
growing more profitable every year, and if you should hang all the
Yankee merchants engaged in it, hundreds would fill their places."[66]
Inherent probability and concurrent testimony confirm the substantial
truth of such confessions. For instance, one traveller discovers on a
Southern plantation Negroes who can speak no English.[67] The careful
reports of the Quakers "apprehend that many [slaves] are also introduced
into the United States."[68] Governor Mathew of the Bahama Islands
reports that "in more than one instance, Bahama vessels with coloured
crews have been purposely wrecked on the coast of Florida, and the crews
forcibly sold." This was brought to the notice of the United States
authorities, but the district attorney of Florida could furnish no
information.[69]

Such was the state of the slave-trade in 1850, on the threshold of the
critical decade which by a herculean effort was destined finally to
suppress it.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Beer, _Geschichte des Welthandels im 19^{ten}
Jahrhundert_, II. 67.

[2] A list of these inventions most graphically illustrates
this advance:--

1738, John Jay, fly-shuttle.
John Wyatt, spinning by rollers.
1748, Lewis Paul, carding-machine.
1760, Robert Kay, drop-box.
1769, Richard Arkwright, water-frame and throstle.
James Watt, steam-engine.
1772, James Lees, improvements on carding-machine.
1775, Richard Arkwright, series of combinations.
1779, Samuel Compton, mule.
1785, Edmund Cartwright, power-loom.
1803-4, Radcliffe and Johnson, dressing-machine.
1817, Roberts, fly-frame.
1818, William Eaton, self-acting frame.
1825-30, Roberts, improvements on mule.

Cf. Baines, _History of the Cotton Manufacture_, pp. 116-231;
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 9th ed., article "Cotton."

[3] Baines, _History of the Cotton Manufacture_, p. 215. A
bale weighed from 375 lbs. to 400 lbs.

[4] The prices cited are from Newmarch and Tooke, and refer to
the London market. The average price in 1855-60 was about
7_d._

[5] From United States census reports.

[6] Cf. United States census reports; and Olmsted, _The Cotton
Kingdom_.

[7] Cf. United States census reports; and Olmsted, _The Cotton
Kingdom_.

[8] As early as 1836 Calhoun decla