the passion of the savage for his own purposes; and when it raged against him, he commenced the work of extermination."

(Vol. I., p. 165.)

Mr. Latrobe says, "It is my firm and settled conviction that the government of the United States, as well as the population of its settled districts, are very sincere in their desire to see justice done to the remnant of these tribes, and, as far as is consistent with the general welfare of the community, to favor and succor them. The main difficulty is, how and by what means these ends are to be attained."

(Vol. I., p. 168.) True; and what is worse, we fear the means employed by the American government aggravate the evil. One, and that the only effectual plan, a national system for their Christianization, in order to their civilization, by which a debt truly national can alone be paid, the American constitution allows not. Agents to negotiate with them, to live among them, to do all that American principles allow to be done for their benefit, are sent; with what results, let Mr. Latrobe, evidently disposed as he is to write in the spirit of kindness, and to say nothing severe, unless as compelled by the truth and necessity of the case, inform us.

"And it is in this that the Indian system pursued by the government is yet defective. I would ask, Are the majority of the agents appointed by government to live among the Indians, to carry its benevolent designs into execution, just, honest, and good men, men of character and probity, above profiting by the defenceless state of the tribes, and superior to the temptations held out on every hand for self-aggrandizement? I think I might answer, without fear of contradiction, in the negative. The Indians are surrounded by bad men, as the hungry wolves of the desert surround a troop of horses. The government of the United States shows, by its conduct to these agents, that it does not put confidence in them; and the hard measure which it deals out to them, is but a bad apology for much of the iniquity practised by them. The position of both Indian agent and Indian trader is one of overwhelming temptation to a man of lax principles." (Vol. I., p. 170.)

Of the missionaries on the Indian frontier, he says, They are far too weak-handed and deficient in worldly wisdom, to cope effectually with the difficulties thrown in their way by the straggling, but powerful, community of traders, agents, and adventurers of every kind, with whom they must be associated in their intercourse with the Indians." (Vol. I., p. 171.)

Mr. Latrobe does not often conduct us to subjects of controversy; yet, in the following extract, much matter both for profound reflection and very serious discussion may be discovered without difficulty:

"Your own reflections will have long ago suggested to you, that among the class of people usually adventuring themselves in any newly-opened part of the Union, as first settlers and pioneers, even in a place like this, which starts at once from the bosom of the forest, with the title and privileges of a city and seat of government, those clinging to the strictest rule in matters of religion, good order, and morals, must, for a while, be considered as forming a minority. It cannot be otherwise. Some time may pass before there is a

regular place of worship; and a still longer period before there is any general disposition manifested in the mass of the inhabitants to maintain among themselves any thing like strict moral discipline. The first step had been taken; and the Methodists, the pioneers in religious matters, had set apart a building for the worship of God, where I heard a good, simple, sound sermon, preached to a thin, but attentive auditory." (Vol. II., p. 58.) On the great question of slavery, Mr. Latrobe says little more than what will be found in the following paragraph:

"But the circumstances which have entailed the possession of slaves at the present day on the Americans of the south, are to be deplored and felt as an evil; and what the consequence will be of the steady increase of the colored population, both free and slave, no one can foresee. The philanthropic or politic attempts made to induce and facilitate emigration, and the colonization of portions of the African coast, are well meaning and well directed; but the good effected hitherto has been so trifling, when compared with the growth of the evil, that the subject must remain a most alarming and embarrassing one; and judging from appearances, only one of two alternatives would appear probable-either, that the colored population would, in course of time, eat the white out of house and home, and come into possession of that part of the country, which appears as congenial to the habits and physical construction of the black, as it is inimical to those of the white; or, that a mixed race should spring up, claiming an equality of rights and consideration; and the latter is far from being improbable, in spite of the loathing with which the white now appears to regard the man of mingled blood, both morally and politically."

(Vol. II., p. 16.)

The subject of American slavery is far too momentous only to be considered incidentally. On the last lines of the extract (which we have put in italics, to direct the special attention of the reader to them) we cannot help, however, bestowing a sentence or two. The Americans plead the difficulties of their condition, and remind us on this side the Atlantic of the length of time occupied in the settlement of the slavery question by ourselves. They tell us, likewise, that they are as much opposed to slavery as we are; but that its extinction must be a very gradual work. All this rather evades the question than meets it. America avowedly founds her government on the perfect, the most absolute, equality of man'; holding this, not as an inferred principle from the theory of their constitution, but as being so directly and avowedly. The celebrated "Declaration of Independence" begins with it. Now, having thus solemnly and unequivocally proclaimed to the world this absolute equality of men, and constructed a government essentially democratic, she holds in bondage hundreds of thousands of slaves, to whom she denies the rights which she proclaims to belong to all men, and for attempting to claim which their lives would be forfeited. She does more. Professing to abhor any thing like aristocratical principles, she yet establishes them more tyrannically than ever they were established even in Venice. An aristocracy of birth, wealth, or rank, she indignantly rejects, and straightway establishes an aristocracy of color, more exclusive, more grinding, more bitterly scornful as to its objects, than any ever known in the world.

Here is the real gist of the question; and on this it is that in every controversy on the subject the stress should be laid. The American republican, yes, the American Christian, mortally hates, loathes, the man of mingled blood. While this plague-spot continues, America talks in vain of her love of freedom. The recollection of her treatment of the colored population compels us to place her among the rest of the numberless examples furnished by history, that freedom in profession often means despotism in practice. So long as a difference in color, however slight, is allowed to deprive a man of those social, political, and religious advantages which he would otherwise possess, so long will the festivities of the fourth of July be as disgraceful as they are inconsistent. To the lovers of a rational freedom, those festivities have long appeared as mirthful as the fanciful decoration of skeletons in a catacomb.

There is one paragraph in Mr. Latrobe's book which, from our knowledge of American sensitiveness, makes us fear for the reception of his volumes. And yet it is not unkindly written. But of this our readers shall judge. He says,

"There are certain signs, perhaps it might be said of the times, rather than of their peculiar political arrangements, which the most unprejudiced traveller must surely note, which should make men pause in their judgment of the social state of America. The people are emancipated from the thraldom of mind and body, which they consider consequent upon upholding the divine right of kings. They are all politically equal. All claim to place, patronage, or respect for the bearer of a great name is disowned. Every man must stand and fall by himself alone, and must make or mar his fortune. Each is gratified in believing that he has his share in the government of the Union. You speak against the insane anxiety of the people to govern, of authority being detrimental to the minds of men raised from insignificance, of the essential vulgarity of minds which can attend to nothing but matter of fact and pecuniary interest, of the possibility of the existence of civilization without cultivation, and you are not understood. I have said it may be the spirit of the times; for we see signs of it, alas! in old England! But there must be something in the political atmosphere of America, which is more than ordinarily congenial to that decline of just and necessary subordination which God has both permitted by the natural impulses of the human mind, and ordered in his word; and to me the looseness of the tie generally observable in many parts of the United States between the master and servant, the child and the parent, the scholar and the master, the governor and the governed; in brief, the decay of loyal feeling in all the relations of life, was the worst sign of the times. Who shall say, but that if these bonds are distorted and set aside, the first and the greatest which binds us in subjection to the laws of God will not also be weakened, if not broken. This, and this alone, short-sighted as I am, would cause me to pause in predicting the future grandeur of America under its present system of government and structure of society; and, if my observation was sufficiently general to be just, you will also grant, there is that which should make a man hesitate whether those glowing expectations for the future, in which we might all indulge, are compatible with growing looseness of religious, political, and social principle." (Vol. II., p. 137.)