he merchants trading to America, the reproach
of which is cast upon us, have proclaimed to all the trading nations
to guard against our laws and policy, and even against our moral
principles."[17]

[Footnote 16: MS. among the Gibbes papers In the capitol at Columbia, S.C.]

[Footnote 17: _Charleston Morning Post_, Dec. 13, 1786 quoted in the
_American Historical Review_, XIV, 537, 538]

The depression continued with increasing severity into the following
decade, when it appears that many of the planters in the Charleston
district were saved from ruin only by the wages happily drawn from the
Santee Canal Company in payment for the work of their slaves in the canal
construction gangs.[18] The conditions and prospects in Virginia at the
same time are suggested by a remark of George Washington in 1794 on slave
investments: "I shall be happily mistaken if they are not found to be a
very troublesome species of property ere many years have passed over our
heads."[19]

[Footnote 18: Samuel DuBose, "Reminiscences of St. Stephen's Parish," in
T.G. Thomas, ed., _History of the Huguenots in South Carolina_ (New York,
1887), pp. 66-68.]

[Footnote 19: New York Public Library _Bulletin_, II, 15. This letter has
been quoted at greater length at the beginning of chapter VIII above.]

Prices in this period were so commonly stated in currency of uncertain
depreciation that a definite schedule by years may not safely be made. It
is clear, however, that the range in 1783 was little lower than it had been
on the eve of the war, while in 1795 it was hardly more than half as high.
For the first time in American history, in a period of peace, there was
a heavy and disquieting fall in slave prices. This was an earnest of
conditions in the nineteenth century when advances and declines alternated.
From about 1795 onward the stability of the currency and the increasing
abundance of authentic data permit the fluctuations of prices to be
measured and their causes and effects to be studied with some assurance.

The materials extant comprise occasional travellers' notes, fairly numerous
newspaper items, and quite voluminous manuscript collections of appraisals
and bills of sale, all of which require cautious discrimination in their
analysis.[20] The appraisals fall mainly into two groups: the valuation of
estates in probate, and those for the purpose of public compensation to
the owners of slaves legally condemned for capital crimes. The former