ons for the Western District, requesting information relating to
the colored immigrants in that quarter. Major Lachlan replied at length
to the inquiries made, and kept a record of his Report. This volume he
has had the goodness to place in our hands, from which to make such
extracts as may be necessary to a true understanding of this question.

The Major entered the public service of the British Government in 1805,
and was connected with the army in India for twenty years. Having
retired from that service, he settled in Canada in 1835, with the
intention of devoting himself to agriculture; but he was again called
into public life, as sheriff, magistrate, colonel of militia, Chairman
of the Quarter Sessions, and Associate Judge at the Assizes. In 1857 he
removed to Cincinnati, where he now resides. A true Briton, he is an
enemy of the system of slavery; but having been a close observer of the
workings of society, under various circumstances, systems of law,
degrees of intelligence, and moral conditions, he is opposed to placing
two races, so widely diverse as the blacks and whites, upon terms of
legal equality; not that he is opposed to the elevation of the colored
man, but because he is convinced that, in his present state of ignorance
and degradation, the two races cannot dwell together in peace and
harmony. This opinion, it will be seen, was the outgrowth of his
experience and observation in Canada, and not the result of a prejudice
against the African race. The Western District, the field of his
official labors, is the main point toward which nearly all the
emigration from the States is directed; and the Major had, thus, the
best of opportunities for studying this question. Besides the facts of
an official nature, in the volume from which we quote, it has a large
amount of documentary testimony, from other sources, from which liberal
extracts have also been made.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Matthew's Gospel, xv: 14.

[85] "A Subaltern's Furlough," by Lt. Coke, 45th Regiment, being a
description of scenes in various parts of America, in 1833.

[86] Clarkson's History of the Slave Trade.

[87] Wadstrom, page 220.

[88] Memoirs of Granville Sharp.

_To the Honorable S. B. Harrison, Secretary, etc., etc._

COLCHESTER, 28th _May_, 1841.

"SIR:--I have to apologize for being thus late in
acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Assistant
Secretary Hopkirk's letter of the 27t