forced, at sacrifices almost incredible. You will have seen in the American newspapers, the various proposals before Congress, and the recommendation in the Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, for remitting part of the price, and extending the time of payment to those purchasers of the public lands, whose instalments are not yet paid up. This relief will probably prevent the Alabama settlers from executing the intentions, which, in my letters from thence, I mentioned having been so generally expressed to me, of relinquishing their purchases, and forfeiting the instalments already paid.

In Richmond, where the disastrous results of the bank mania have been pre-eminently conspicuous, and where real estate has fallen 50 to 75 per cent, there having been several instances in which property having been sold, payable in three or four instalments, has, after the payment of all the previous instalments, been transferred to the seller to discharge the last; it is estimated that more than one-half of the city and its immediate vicinity, is mortgaged to the banks.

In Baltimore, about one-third is similarly situated; and property there is only prevented from exhibiting a depreciation, nearly equal to

that of Richmond, by the policy adopted by the banks of holding it, in the expectation that its gradual advance will pay them a better interest for their money, than could be obtained from investments or discounts, if they were to force a sale. A house and store were pointed out to me in Baltimore, in the principal commercial street, which, about 1816, were let for 2000 dollars per annum, but are now let for 600 only. This is an extreme case; but taking the city generally, it would probably be correct to estimate the decline in rents at from 40 to 50 per cent. Real estate has fallen from 33 to 50 per cent; the interruption to the intercourse between the United States and the West Indies, having raised the calamities of this town to a level with the general distress, in which it might otherwise have participated less deeply than some of its neighbours, from having been visited less severely with those worse than Egyptian plagues, bank discounts of accommodation notes, renewable ad infinitum.

Labour, here, as in all slave-states, falls almost exclusively on the slaves; and the porterage of the town, the loading and discharging of ships, &c. are performed by those who are either hired out by their masters, by the week, or allowed, on paying their masters a certain

sum, generally about two dollars per week, to find work for themselves, and retain the surplus.

Allowing for the different effects of a system of this kind, and a system of free labour, and fully aware how slowly, though certainly, the price of labour follows the price of provisions, I was surprised to find, that while the latter has fallen two-thirds, the former has declined less than a fourth. This is owing partly to the circumstance of the owners of the coloured labourers being able to hold out on any particular occasion, against an attempt to reduce their wages; an attempt which can seldom be effectually resisted by persons whose daily labour must obtain their daily bread; partly to conscientious scruples, which deter many holders of hereditary or domestic slaves from selling them for the southern market, and others from buying their fellow-creatures, to hire them out at home like cattle; but principally to such an irregularity of demand, as renders it impossible to adjust the supply to its casual fluctuations, and induces a necessity of including in the remuneration for the hours employed, some compensation for those lost in waiting for employment.

Slaves, who, in Norfolk, are now worth on an average, 300 to 400 dollars each, receive from

the merchant who engages their services, 75 cents per day, and their food. These are enormous wages, where turkies, weighing five or six pounds, will sell for 1s 9d sterling, and wild ducks at 2s per couple; and where flour is four dollars per barrel, Indian corn, their favourite food, forty cents per bushel, and beef and mutton five to eight cents per pound. As sailors, their master can obtain for the slaves 10 dollars per month; and there are many families in Norfolk, especially many widows and orphans, whose property consists entirely of hereditary slaves, whom they hire out as the only means of obtaining an income.

Letter XXXHHH.

New York, 24th Dec. 1820.

I MAY now proceed with our personal narrative, with which I was unwilling to interrupt my remarks on emigration. I left Philadelphia, as I proposed, on the 7th, in the steam-boat, and reached Newcastle, in the State of Delaware, 40 miles down the river, about four o'clock, when we were packed in stages, and driven across the State, to Frenchtown, on the Susquehanna. Here we went on board a very handsome steam-boat, and at three o'clock in the morning, were safely moored to the wharf at Baltimore, 139 miles from Philadelphia. On the 11th, we set out to Norfolk. We had a fine sail down the Chesapeake Bay, and in ten hours had completed more than 100 miles. We accomplished the whole distance, 210 miles, in 22 hours, including two hours in which we came to anchor in the night, where the navigation was difficult. This is rapid travelling. Indeed, I arrived here in less than a fortnight, after leaving Philadelphia; travelling 780 miles,