series
of scandalous stories, which would have made Boccacio jealous of her
pen, but which are so ridiculously false as to leave no doubt, that some
wicked wag, knowing she would write a book, has furnished her
materials--a game too often played on tourists in this country. The
constant recurrence of the female abolitionists to this topic, and their
bitterness in regard to it, cannot fail to suggest to even the most
charitable mind, that

"Such rage without betrays the fires within."

Nor are their immaculate coadjutors of the other sex, though perhaps
less specific in their charges, less violent in their denunciations. But
recently in your island, a clergyman has, at a public meeting,
stigmatized the whole slave region as a "brothel." Do these people thus
cast stones, being "without sin?" Or do they only

"Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to."

Alas that David and Solomon should be allowed to repose in peace--that
Leo should be almost canonized, and Luther more than sainted--that in
our own day courtezans should be formally licensed in Paris, and
tenements in London rented for years to women of the town for the
benefit of the church, with the knowledge of the bishop--and the poor
slave States of America alone pounced upon, and offered up as a
holocaust on the altar of immaculateness, to atone for the abuse of
natural instinct by all mankind; and if not actually consumed, at least
exposed, anathematized and held up to scorn, by those who

"Write,
Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite."

But I do not intend to admit that this charge is just or true. Without
meaning to profess uncommon modesty, I will say that I wish the topic
could be avoided. I am of opinion, and I doubt not every right-minded
man will concur, that the public exposure and discussion of this vice,
even to rebuke, invariably does more harm than good; and that if it
cannot be checked by instilling pure and virtuous sentiments, it is far
worse than useless to attempt to do it, by exhibiting its deformities. I
may not, however, pass it over; nor ought I to feel any delicacy in
examining a question, to which the slaveholder is invited and challenged
by clergymen and virgins. So far from allowing, then, that
licentiousness pervades this region, I broadly assert, and I refer to
the records of our courts, to the public press, and