vies, then a member of the Society for Promoting
the Gospel among the Poor, reported that there were multitudes of
Negroes in different parts of Virginia who were "willingly, eagerly
desirous to be instructed and embraced every opportunity of
acquainting themselves with the Doctrine of the Gospel," and though
they had generally very little help to learn to read, yet to his
surprise many of them by dint of application had made such progress
that they could "intelligently read a plain author and especially
their Bible." Pity it was, he thought, that any of them should be
without necessary books. Negroes were wont to come to him with such
moving accounts of their needs in this respect that he could not help
supplying them.[2] On Saturday evenings and Sundays his home was
crowded with numbers of those "whose very Countenances still carry the
air of importunate Petitioners" for the same favors with those who
came before them. Complaining that his stock was exhausted, and that
he had to turn away many disappointed, he urged his friends to send
him other suitable books, for nothing else, thought he, could be a
greater inducement to their industry to learn to read.

[Footnote 1: Fawcett, _Compassionate Address_, etc., p. 33.]

[Footnote 2: Fawcett, _Compassionate Address_, etc., p. 33.]

Still more reliable testimony may be obtained, not from persons
particularly interested in the uplift of the blacks, but from
slaveholders. Their advertisements in the colonial newspapers furnish
unconscious evidence of the intellectual progress of the Negroes
during the eighteenth century. "He's an 'artful,'"[1] "plausible,"[2]
"smart,"[3] or "sensible fellow,"[4] "delights much in traffic,"[5]
and "plays on the fife extremely well,"[6] are some of the statements
found in the descriptions of fugitive slaves. Other fugitives were
speaking "plainly,"[7] "talking indifferent English,"[8] "remarkably
good English,"[9] and "exceedingly good English."[10] In some
advertisements we observe such expressions as "he speaks a little
French,"[11] "Creole French,"[12] "a few words of High-Dutch,"[13] and
"tolerable German."[14] Writing about a fugitive a master would often
state that "he can read print,"[15] "can read writing,"[16] "can read
and also write a little,"[17] "can read and write,"[18] "can write
a pretty hand and has probably forged a pass."[19] These conditions
obtained especially in Charleston, South Carolina, where were
advertised various