glish consul, MR. G. P. R. JAMES, as a reply to some objections
urged by that gentleman to negro slavery. It appears that years ago,
before MR. JAMES attained that world-wide celebrity which has
irrevocably placed him at the summit of English literature (we are sure
he will be the last person to contradict us), he concocted a "squib"
against the slave-owning system. The missile flew so silently and
harmlessly through English air that nobody seems to have listened to it,
but the case appears to have alighted on American ground, and to have
been treasured up by the fortunate finder as evidence against the
pyrotechnician and historiographer. MR. JAMES receives his appointment
and goes to Virginia, the squib is produced, and excites the fierce rage
of the man-stealers, who, as has been said, make five attempts to burn
down the great novelist's house. Whether, being as cowardly as MRS.
STOWE has taught us to regard them, the conspirators made their efforts
in the night, and being scared by the noise made by the distinguished
author in snuffing his candle, the click being mistaken for the cocking
of a rifle, or whether, in the frantic tipsiness which, the authoress of
_Uncle Tom_ tells us, accompanies their social orgies, they endeavoured
to set fire to a stone wall, or to the _Life and Times of_ LOUIS XIV.,
or any other impracticable mass, we are not informed--perhaps cowardice
and clumsiness were united, as in every other effort in defence of
slavery. Anyhow, MR. JAMES'S property had, at the last advices, escaped
the vengeance of those who, brutalised by slave-owning, can hardly think
much of arson. Meantime, we have been anxious to see this celebrated
squib, and having applied in vain to MR. JAMES'S London publishers, we
have been compelled to send over to America for it. The document arrived
by the United States' Mail steamship Washington, which reached Cowes on
Friday night, bringing mails to the 8th, and it was instantly forwarded
to us by a special train on the South Western line. We hasten to give
it.

THE SLAVE-OWNERS.

_Epigram by_ G. P. R. JAMES, _Historiographer to the Queen, author of
"Darnley," "De L'Orme," "The Gipsy," "The Life and Times of Louis the
Fourteenth," "Tales of the Passions," &c. &c._

Surely these men must have very _black_ hearts
To treat the poor _blacks_ in this way;
Rather than suffer such _terrible_ smarts,
I wonder _they don't run away_.

G. P. R. J.

*