own is seated, I stepped into
one of the large tobacco warehouses which are built here, for the reception
and inspection of that plant before it is permitted to be exported. On
entering into conversation with an inspector, as he was employed in looking
over a parcel of tobacco, he lamented the licentiousness which he remarked
so generally prevailed in this town. He said that in his remembrance, the
principal part of the inhabitants were emigrants from Scotland, and that it
was considered so reproachful to the white inhabitants, if they were found
to have illicit connection with their female slaves, that their neighbors
would shun the company of such, as of persons whom it was a reproach to be
acquainted. The case was now so much altered that, he believed, there were
but few slave holders in the place who were free from guilt in this
respect: and that it was now thought but little of. Such was the brutality
and hardness of heart which this evil produced, that many amongst them paid
no more regard to selling their own children, by their females slaves, or
even their brothers and sisters, in the same line, than they would do to
the disposal of a cow or a horse, or any other property in the brute
creation. To so low a degree of degradation does the system of negro
slavery sink the white inhabitants, who are unhappily engaged in
it."--Robert Sutcliff, _Travels in some parts of North America in Years
1804, 1805, 1806_, pp. 37-52.

SOME LETTERS OF RICHARD ALLEN AND ABSALOM JONES TO DOROTHY RIPLEY

Philadelphia, 1st, 5th month, 1803.--Naming my concern to some of my solid
friends to have a meeting with the Africans, I influenced them to send for
Absalom Jones, the Black Bishop, and Richard Allen, the Methodist Episcopal
Preacher, who also was a coloured man, and the principal person of that
congregation. A. Jones complied with my request, and appointed a meeting
for me on first day evening, which was a solid time where many were deeply
affected with the softening power of the Lord, who unloosed my tongue to
proclaim of his love and goodness to the children of men, without respect
to person or nation. There was a respectable number of coloured people,
well dressed and very orderly, who conducted themselves as if they were
desirous of knowing the mind of the Lord concerning them. The first and
greatest commandment of Jesus Christ, the Law-giver, came before me: "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with a