Carey, Mathew (1760-1839) The American Museum, volume 6

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An essay on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure in the human species. To which are added strictures on lord Kaims' discourse, on the original diversity of mankind. By the reverend Samuel Stanhope Smith, D.D. vice - president, and professor of moral philosophy, in the college of New Jersey; and M. A. P. S.
IN the history and philosophy of human nature, one of the first objects that strikes an observer, is the variety of complexion, and of figure, among mankind. To assign the causes of this phenomenon, has been frequently a subject of curious speculation. Many philosophers have resolved the difficulties, with which this enquiry is attended, by having recourse to the arbitrary hypothesis, that men are originally sprung from different flocks, and are, therefore, divided by nature into different species. But as we are not at liberty to make this supposition, so I hold it to be unphilosophical to recur to hypothesis, when the whole effect may, on pro-

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per investigation, be accounted for, by the ordinary laws of nature*.
On this discussion I am now about to enter; and shall probably unfold, in its progress, some principles, the full importance of which will not be obvious, at first view, to those who have not been accustomed to observe the operations of nature, with minute and careful attention-principles, however, which, experience leads me to believe, will acquire additional evidence from time and observation.
Of the causes of these varieties among mankind, I shall treat under the heads-
I. Of climate.
II. Of the state of society.
In treating this subject, I shall not espouse any peculiar system of medical principles, which, in the continual revolutions of opinion, might be in hazard of being hereafter discarded. I shall, as much as possible, avoid using terms of art; or attempting to explain the manner of operation of the causes, where diversity of opinion among physicians has left the subject in doubt.
And, in the beginning, permit me to make one general remark, which must often have occurred to every judicious enquirer into the powers both of moral and of physical causes--that every permanent and characteristic variety in human nature, is effected by flow and almost imperceptible gradations. Great and sudden changes are too violent for the delicate constitution of man, and always tend to destroy the system. But changes, that become incorporated, and that form a character of a climate or a nation are progressively carried on through several generations, till the causes, that produce them, have attained their utmost operation. In this way, the minutest causes, acting constantly, and long continued, will necessarily create great and conspicuous differences among mankind.
I. Of the first class of causes, I shall treat, under the head of climate.
In tracing the globe from the pole to the equator, we observe a gradation in the complexion, nearly in proportion to the latitude of the country. Immediately below the arctic circle, a high and sanguine colour prevails. From this, you descend to the mixture of red in white: afterwards succeed the brown, the olive, the tawny, and, at length, the black, as you proceed to the line. The same distance from the sun, however, does not, in every region, indicate the same temperature of climate. Some secondary causes must be taken into consideration, as correcting and limiting its influence. The elevation of the land-its vicinity to the sea-the nature of the soil-the state of cultivation-the course of winds-and many other circumstances-enter into this view. Elevated and mountainous countries are cool, in proportion to their altitude above the level of the sea-vicinity to the ocean produces opposite effects, in northern and southern latitudes; for the ocean, being of a more equal temperature than the land, in one cafe, corrects the cold, in the other, moderates the heat. Ranges of mountains, such as the Appennines in Italy, and Taurus, Caucasus, and Imaus in Asia, by interrupting the course of cold winds, render the protected countries below them warmer, and the countries above them colder, than is equivalent to the proportional difference of latitude. The frigid zone in Asia is much wider, than it is in Europe; and that continent hardly knows a temperate zone. From the northern ocean to Caucasus, says Montesquieu, Asia may be considered as a flat mountain. Thence, to the ocean that washes Persia and India, it is a low and level country, without seas, and protected by this immense range of hills from the polar winds. The Asiatic is, therefore, warmer than the European continent, below the fortieth degree of latitude; and, above that latitude, it is much more cold. Climate also receives some dif-

NOTE.
* It is no small objection to this hypothesis, that these species can never be ascertained. We have no means of distinguishing, how many were originally formed, or where any of them are now to be found. And they must have been long since so mixed by the migrations of mankind, that the properties of each species can never be determined. Besides, this supposition unavoidably confounds the whole philosophy of human nature.

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ference from the nature of the soil; and some from the degree of cultivation. Sand is susceptible of greater heat than clay; and an uncultivated region, shaded with forests, and covered with undrained marshes, is more frigid in northern, and more temperate in southern latitudes, than a country laid open to the direct and constant action of the sun. History informs us, that, when Germany and Scythia were buried in forests, the Romans often transported their armies across the frozen Danube; but, since the civilization of those barbarous regions, the Danube rarely freezes. Many other circumstances might be enumerated, which modify the influence of climate. These will be sufficient to give a general idea of the subject: and by the intelligent reader they may be easily extended and applied to the state of particular countries.
From the preceding observations we derive this conclusion, that there is a general resemblance of nations, according to the latitude from the equator-subject, however, to innumerable varieties, from the infinite combinations of the circumstances I have suggested. After having exhibited the general effect, I shall take up the capital deviations from it, that are found in the world, and endeavour to shew that they naturally result from certain concurrences of these modifying causes.
Our experience verifies the power of climate on the complexion. The heat of summer darkens the skin, the cold of winter chases it, and excites a sanguine colour. These alternate effects, in the temperate zone, tend in some degree to correct each other. But when heat or cold predominates in any region, it impresses, in the same proportion, a permanent and characteristical complexion. The degree, in which predominates, may be considered a constant cause, to the action of which the human is exposed. This cause will affect the nerves, by tension or relaxation, by dilatation or contraction-it will affect the fluids, by increasing or lessening the perspiration, and by altering the proportions of all the secretions-it will peculiarly affect the skin, by the immediate operation of the atmosphere--of the sun's rays-or of the principle of cold, upon its delicate texture. Every sensible difference in the degree of the cause, will create a visible change in the human body. To suggest at present a single example-a cold and piercing air chases the countenance and exalts the complexion-an air that is warm and misty, relaxes the constitution, and gives, especially in valetudinarians, some tendency to a bilious hue. These effects are transient, and interchangeable, in countries where heat and cold alternately succeed in nearly equal proportions. But when the climate constantly repeats the one or the other of these effects in any degree, then, in proportion, an habitual colour begins to be formed. Colour and figure may be styled habits of the body. Like other habits, they are created not by great and sudden impressions, but by continual and almost imperceptible touches. Of habits, both of mind and body, nations are susceptible, as well as individuals. They are transmitted to their offspring, and augmented by inheritance. Long in growing to maturity, national features, like national manners, become fixed, only after a succession of ages. They become, however, fixed at last. And if we can ascertain any effect, produced by a given state of weather or of climate, it requires only repetition during a sufficient length of time, to augment and impress it with a permanent character. The sanguine countenance will, for this reason, be perpetual in the highest latitudes of the temperate zone; and we shall forever find the swarthy, the olive, the tawny, and the black, as we descend to the south.
The uniformity of the effect in the same climate, and on men in a similar state of society, proves the power and certainty of the cause. If the advocates of different human species suppose that the beneficent Deity created the inhabitants of the earth of different colours, because the these colours are best adapted to their respective zones, it surely places his benevolence in a more advantageous light, to say, he has given to human nature the power of accommodating itself to every zone. This pliance of nature is favourable to the unions of the most

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distant nations. and facilitates the acquisition and the extension of science, which would otherwise be confined to few objects, and to a very limited range. It opens the way particularly to the knowledge of the globe which we inhabit-a subject so important and interesting to man. It is verified by experience. Mankind are forever changing their habitations, by conquest or by commerce. And we find them, in all climates, but so assimilated by time, that we cannot say with certainty, whose ancestor was the native of the clime, and whose the intruding foreigner.
I will here propose a few principles on the change of colour, that are not liable to dispute, and that may tend to shed some light on this subject.
In the beginning, it may be proper to observe, that the skin, though extremely delicate, and easily susceptible of impression from external causes, is, from its structure, among the least mutable parts of the body*. Change of complexion does for this reason continue long, from whatever cause it may have arisen. And if the causes of colour have deeply penetrated the texture of the skin, it becomes perpetual. Figures, therefore, that are stained with paints inserted by puncutes made in its surface, can never be effaced +. An ardent sun is able entirely to penetrate its texture. Even in our climate, the skin, when first exposed to the direct and continued action of the solar rays, is inflamed into blisters, and scorched through its whole substance. Such an operation not only changes its colour, but increases its thickness. The stimulus of heat exciting a greater flux of humours to the skin, tends to incrassate its substance, till it becomes dense enough to resist the action of the exciting cause ++. On the same principle, friction excites blisters in the hand of the labourer, and thickens the skin, till it becomes able to endure the continued operation of his instruments. The face or the hand, exposed uncovered during an entire summer, contracts a colour of the darkest brown. In a torrid climate, where the inhabitants are naked, the colour will be as much deeper, as the ardor of the sun is more constant and more intense. And if we compare the dark hue, that, among us, is sometimes formed by continual exposure, with the colour of the African, the difference is not greater, than is proportioned to the augmented heat and constancy of the climate ||.
The principle of colour is not, however, to be derived solely from the action of the sun upon the skin. Heat, especially, when united with putrid exhalations, that copiously impregnate the atmosphere in warm and uncultivated regions, relaxes the nervous system. The bile, in consequence, is augmented, and shed through the whole mass of the body. This liquor tinges the complexion of a yellow colour, which assumes by time a darker hue. In many other instances, we see, that relaxation, whether it be caused by the vapours of stagnant waters, or by sedentary occupations, or by loss of blood, or by indolence, subjects men to disorders of the bile, and discolours of skin. It has been proved,

NOTES.
* Anatomists inform us, that, like the bones, it has few or no vessels, and therefore is not liable to those changes of augmentation or diminution, and continual alteration of parts, to which the flesh, the blood, and the whole vascular system is subject.
+ It is well known, what a length of time is required to efface the freckles, contracted in a fair skin, by the exposure of a single day. Freckles are seen of all shades of colour. They are known to be created by the sun; and become indelible by time. The sun has power equally to change every part of the skin, when equally exposed to its action. And it is, not improperly, observed by some writers, that colour may be justly considered as a universal freckle.
VOL. VI.

NOTES.
++ Anatomists know, that all people of colour have their skin thicker than people of fair complexion, in proportion to the darkness of the hue.
|| If the force of fire be sufficient, at a given distance, to scorch the fuel, approach it as much nearer, as is proportional to the difference of heat between our climate and that of Africa, and it will burn it black.

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by physicians, that, in fervid climates, the bile is always augmented in proportion to the heat*. Bile exposed to the sun and air, is known to change its colour to black-black is therefore the tropical hue. Men, who remove from northern to southern regions, are usually attacked by dangerous disorders, that leave the blood impoverished, and shed a yellow appearance over the skin. These disorders are perhaps the efforts of nature, in breaking down and changing the constitution, in order to accommodate it to the climate; or to give it that degree of relaxation, and to mingle with it that proportion of bile, which is necessary for its new situation +. On this dark ground, the hue of the climate becomes, at length, deeply and permanently impressed.
On the subject of the physical causes of colour, I shall reduce my principles to a few short propositions, derived chiefly from experience and observation, and placed in such connexion, as to illustrate and support each other. They may be enlarged and multiplied by men of leisure and talents, who are disposed to pursue the inquiry farther.
1. It is a fact, that the sun darkens the skin, although there be no uncommon redundancy of the bile.
2. It is also a fact, that a redundancy of bile darkens the skin, although there be no uncommon exposure to the sun ++.
3. It is a fact equally certain, that, where both causes co-operate, the effect is much greater, and the colour much deeper ||.
4. It is discovered by anatomists, that the skin consists of three lamellae, or folds--the external, which in all nations, is an extremely fine and transparent integument--the interior, which is also white--and an intermediate, which is a cellular membrane, filled with a mucous substance.
5. This substance, what ever it be, is altered in its appearance and colour, with every change of the constitution--as appears in blushing, in fevers, or in consequence of exercise. A lax nerve, that does not propel the blood with vigour, leaves it pale and fallow--it is instantly affected with the smallest surcharge of bile, and stained of a yellow colour.
6. The change of climate produces a proportionate alteration in the internal state and structure of the body, and in the quantity of the secretions*. In southern climates particularly, the bile, as has been remarked, is always augmented.
7. Bile, exposed to the sun and air, in a stagnant, or nearly in a stagnant state, tends in its colour towards black.
8. The secretions, as they approach the extremities, become more languid in their motion, till at length they come almost to a fixed state in the skin.
9. The aqueous parts escaping easily by perspiration through the pores of the skin, those that are more dense and incrassated remain in a mucous or glutinous state, in that cellular membrane between the interior skin and the scarf, and receive there, during a long time, the impressions of external and discolouring causes.

NOTES.
* See dr. M'Clurg on the bile.
+Physicians differ in their opinions, concerning the state of the bile in warm countries. Some suppose that it is thrown out to be a corrector of putridity. Others suppose, that, in all relaxed habits, the bile is itself in a putrid state. I decide not among the opinions of physicians. Whichever be true, the theory I advance will be equally just. The bile will be augmented; it will tinge the skin; and there, whether in a found or putrid state, will receive the action of the fun and atmosphere, and be, in proportion, changed towards black.
++ Redundancy of bile long continued, as in the case of the black jaundice, or of extreme melancholy, creates a colour almost perfectly black.
|| This we see verified in those persons, who have long been subject to bilious disorders, if they have been much exposed to the sun. Their complexion becomes in that case extremely dark.
* This appears from the disorders, with which men are usually attacked, on changing their climate; and from the difference of figure and aspect, which takes place in consequence of such removals. This latter reflexion will hereafter be further illustrated.

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10. The bile is peculiarly liable to become mucous and incrassated +; and in this state, being unfit for perspiration, and attaching itself strongly to that spongy tissue of nerves, it is there detained for a length of time, till it receives the repeated action of the sun and atmosphere.
11. From all the preceding principles taken together, it appears, that the complexion, in any climate, will be changed towards black, in proportion to the degree of heat in the atmosphere, and to the quantity of bile in the skin.
12. The vapours of stagnant waters, with which uncultivated regions abound-all great fatigues and hardships-poverty and nastiness-tend, as well as heat, to augment the bile. Hence, no less than from their nakedness, savages will always be discoloured, even in cold climates. For, though cold, when assisted by succulent nourishment, and by the comfortable lodging and clothing furnished in civilized society, propels the blood with force to the extremities, and clears the complexion; yet when hardships and bad living relax the system, and when poor and shivering savages, under the arctic cold, do not possess the conveniences, that, by opening the pores, and cherishing the body, assist the motion of the blood to the surface, the florid and sanguine principle is repelled; and the complexion is left to be formed by the dark-coloured bile; which in that state, becomes the more dark, because the obstruction of the pores preserves it longer in a fixed state in the skin. Hence, perhaps, the deep Lapponian complexion, which has been esteemed a phenomenon to difficult to be explained.
13. Cold, where it is not extreme*, is followed by a contrary effect. It corrects the bile, it braces the constitution, it propels the blood to the surface of the body with vigour, and renders the complexion clear and florid +.
Such are the observations, which I propose, concerning the proximate cause of colour in the human species. But I remark, with pleasure, that, whether this theory be well founded or not, the fact may be perfectly ascertained, that climate has all that power to change the complexion, which I suppose, and which is necessary to the present subject. It appears from the whole slate of the world-it appears from obvious and undeniable events within the memory of history, and from events even within our own view.

NOTES.
+ In this state it is always copiously found, in the stomach and intestines, at least in consequence of a bilious habit of body.
* Extreme cold is followed by an effect similar to that of extreme heat: it relaxes the constitution by overstraining it, and augments the bile. This, together with the fatigues

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happy are as black as the Ethiopians. In these ancient nations colour holds a regular progression, with the latitude from the equator. The examples of the Chinese, and the Arabians, are the more decisive on this subject, because they are known to have continued, from the remotest antiquity, unmingled with other nations. The latter, in particular, can be traced up to their origin from one family. But no example can carry with it greater force, on this subject, than that of the Jews. Descended from one stock, prohibited, by their most sacred institutions, from intermarrying with other nations, and yet dispersed, according to the divine predictions, into every country on the globe, this one people is marked with the colours of all;--fair in Britain and Germany, brown in France and in Turkey, swarthy in Portugal and in Spain, olive in Syria and in Chaldea, tawny or copper coloured in Arabia and in Egypt +.
Another example of the power of climate, more immediately subject to our own view, may be shewn in the inhabitants of these united states. Sprung, within a few years, from the British, the Irish and the German nations, who are the fairest people in Europe, they are now spread over this continent, from the thirty first to the forty fifth degree of northern latitude. And, notwithstanding the temperature of the climate-notwithstanding the shortness of the period, since their first establishment in America-notwithstanding the continual mixture of Europeans, with those born in the country-notwithstanding previous ideas of beauty, that prompted them to guard against the influence of the climate-and notwithstanding the state of high civilization, in which they took possession of their new habitations, they have already suffered a visible change. A certain countenance of paleness, and of softness, strikes. a traveller from Britain, the moment he arrives on our shore. A degree of sallowness is visible to him, which, through familiarity, or the want of a general standard of comparison, hardly attracts our observation. This effect is more obvious in the middle, and still more, in the southern, than in the northern states. It is more observable, in the low lands near the ocean, than as you approach the Apalachian mountains; and more, in the lower and labouring classes of people, than in the families of easy fortune, who possess the means and the inclination to protect their complexion. The inhabitants of New Jersey, below the falls of the rivers, are somewhat darker in their colour, than the people of Pennsylvania, both because the land is lower in its situation, and because it is covered with a greater quantity of stagnant water. A more southern latitude augments the colour, along the shores of Maryland and Virginia. At length, the low lands of the Carolinas, and of Georgia, degenerate to a complexion, that is but a few shades lighter, than that of the Iroquois. I speak of the poor labouring classes of the people, who are always first and most deeply affected by the influence of climate, and who eventually give the national complexion to every country. The change of complexion, which has already passed upon these people, is not easily imagined by an inhabitant of Britain; and furnishes the clearest evidence to an attentive observer of nature, that, if they were thrown, like the native Indians, into a sagave state, they would be perfectly marked, in time, with the same colour. Not only their complexion, but their whole constitution, seems to be changed. So thin and meagre, is the habit of the poor, and of the overseers of their slaves, that, frequently, their limbs appear to have a length disproportioned to the body; and the shape of the skeleton is evidently discernible through the skin*.

NOTE.
+ Buffon's nat. hist. vol. 3d
* The dark colour of the natives of the West India islands, is well known to approach very near a dark copper. The descendants of the Spaniards, in South America, are already become copper-coloured : [see phil. trans.of roy. soc. Lond. No.476. sect. 4.] The Portuguese of Mitomba, in Sierra Leona on the coast of Africa, have, by intermarrying with the natives, and by adopting their manners, become, in a few generations, perfectly assimilated in aspect, figure, and complexion, [see treatise on the trade of Great Britain to Africa, by an African merchant.] And lord Kaims, who cannot be suspected of partiality on this subject, says of another Portuguese settlement on the coast of Congo, that the descendants of those polished Europeans, have become, both in their persons and their manners, more like beasts than like men. [see sketches of man, prel. disc.] These examples tend to strengthen the inference, drawn from the changes, that have happened in the Anglo-Americans. And they shew, how easily climate would assimilate foreigners to natives in the course of time, if they would adopt the same manners, and equally expose themselves to its influence.
VOL. VI.

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If these men had been found in a distant region, where no memory of their origin remained, the philosophers, who espouse the hypothesis of different species of men, would have produced them in proof, as they have often done nations, distinguish these from their European ancestors+. Examples, taken from the natives of the united states, are the stronger, because climate has not had time to impress upon them its full character: and the change has been retarded by the arts of society, and by the continual intermixture of foreign nations.
These changes may, to persons who think superficially on the subject, seem more slow in their progress, that is consistent with the principles, hitherto laid down, concerning the influence of climate. But, in the philosophy of human nature, it is worthy of observation, that all national changes, whether moral or physical, advance by imperceptible gradation, and are not accomplished but in a series of ages. Ten centuries were requisite, to polish the manners of Europe. It is not improbable, that an equal space of time may be necessary, to form the countenance, and the figure of the body-to receive all the insensible and infinite and infinite impressions of climate-to combine these with the effects, that result from the state of society- to blend both along with personal peculiarities-and by the innumerable unions of families, to melt down the whole into one uniform and national countenance*. It is even questionable, whether, amidst eternal migrations and conquests, any nation in Europe has yet received the full effects of these causes. China and Arabia are perhaps the only civilized countries in the world, which they have attained their utmost operation; because they are the only countries, in which the people have been able, during a long succession of ages, to preserve themselves unmixed with other nations. Each parallel of latitude is, among complexion. In no other nations, is there such a regular and perfect gradation of colour, as is traced from the fait natives of Pekin, to Canton, whose inhabitants are of the

NOTES.
+ The habit of America is, in general, more slender than that of Britain. But the extremely meagre aspect of the poorest and lowest class of people, in some of the southern slates, may arise from the following cause, that the changes, produced by climate, are, in the first instance, generally diseases. Hereafter, when the constitution shall be perfectly accommodated to the climate to the climate, it will by degrees assume a more regular and agreeable figure. The Anglo-Americans, however, will never resemble the native Indians. Civilization will prevent so great a degeneracy. either in the colour, of the features. Even if of they were thrown back again into the savage slate, the resemblance would not be complete; because, the one would receive the impressions of the climate, on the ground of features formed in Europe-the others have received them, on the ground of features, formed in a very different region of the globe. The effects of such various combinations can never be the same.
*In savage life, men more speedily receive the characteristic features of the climate, and of the state of society; because the habits and ideas of society, among them, are few and simple; and to the action of the climate they are exposed naked and defenseless, to suffer its full force at once.

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darkest copper-or, from the olive of the Desert Arabia, to the deep black of the province of Yemen. It is plain then, that the causes of colour, and of other varieties in the human species, have not yet had their full operation on the inhabitants of these united states. However, they have already had such an operation, as affords a strong proof, and an interesting example of the powerful influence of climate*.
The preceding observations have been intended chiefly to explain the principle of color. I proceed now to illustrate the influence of climate on other varieties of the human body.
It would be impossible, in the compass of a discourse like the present, to enter feature of the countenance, and of every limb of the body; and to explain all the changes in each, that may possibly be produced by the power of climate, combined other accidental causes. our knowledge of the human constitution, or of the globe, or of the powers of nature, is, perhaps, not sufficiently accurate and extensive, to enable us to offer a satisfactory solution of every difficulty, that an attentive or a captious observer might propose. But if we are able, on just principles, to explain the capital varieties, in figure and aspect, that exist among different nations, it ought to satisfy a reasonable enquirer; as no minute differences can be sufficient, to constitute a distinct species.
I shall, therefore, confine my observations, at present, to those conspicuous varieties, that appear in the hair, the figure of the head, the size of the limbs, and the principal features of the face.
The hair generally follows the law of the complexion; because, its roots, being planted in the skin, derive its nourishment and its colour from the same substance, which there contributes to form the complexion. Every gradation of colour in the skin, from the brown to the perfectly black, is accompanied with proportionate shades in the hair. The pale red, or sandy complexion, on the other hand, is usually attended with redness of the hair. Between these two points, is found almost every other colour of this excrescence, arising from the accidental mixture of the principles of black and red, in different proportions. White hair, which is found only with the fairest skin, seems to be the middle of the extremes, and the ground in which they both are blended*. The extremes, if I may speak so, are as near to each other, as to any point in the circle, and are often found to run into one another. The Highlanders of Scotland are generally either black or red. A red beard is frequently united with black hair. And if, in a red or dark-coloured family, a child happens to deviate from the law of the house, it is commonly to the opposite extreme. On this observation permit me to remark, that those who deny the identity of human origin, because one nation is red and another

NOTE.
*The reader will please to keep in mind, that, in remarking in the changes, that have passed on the Anglo-Americans, I have in view the mass of the people: and that I have in view, likewise, natives of the second or third generation, and not such as are sprung from parents, one or both of whom have been born in Europe; though, even with regard to these, the remarks will be found to hold good in a great degree.

NOTE.
*That black hair is sometimes supposed to be united with the fairest skin, arises from the deception, which the contrast, between the hair and skin, puts upon the sight.

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black, might, on the same principle, deny, to persons of different complexion, the identity of family. But as the fact, in the latter instance, is certain; we may, in the former, reasonably conclude, that the state of nerves or fluids, which contributes to produce one or other of these effects in a single family, may be the general tendency of a particular climate. In this example, at least, we see, that the human constitution is capable of being molded, by physical causes, into many of the varieties that distinguish mankind. It is contrary therefore to sound philosophy, which never, without necessity, assigns different causes for similar events, to have recourse, for explaining these varieties, to the hypothesis of several original species*.
Climate possesses great and evident influence on the hair, not only of men, but of all other animals. The changes, which this excrescence undergoes in them, is at least equal to what it suffers in man. If, in one cafe, these transmutations are acknowledged to be consistent with identity of kind, they ought not, in the other, to be esteemed criterions of distinct species Nature has adapted the pliancy of her work, to the situations, in which she may require it to be placed. The beaver, removed to the warm latitudes, exchanges its fur, and the sheep its wool, for a coarse hair, that preserves the animal in a more moderate temperature. The coarse and black shag of the bear is converted, in the arctic regions, into the finest and whitest fur. The horse, the deer, and almost every animal protected by hair, doubles his coat in the beginning of winter, and sheds it in the spring, when it is no longer useful. The fineness and density of the hair is augmented, in proportion to the latitude of the country. The Canadian and Russian furs are, therefore, better than the furs of climates farther south. The colour of the hair is likewise changed by climate. The bear is white under the arctic circle; and in high northern latitudes, black foxes are most frequently found. Similar effects of climate, on mankind, are also discernible. Almost every nation is distinguished by some peculiar quality of this excrescence. The hair of the Danes is generally red; of the English, fair or brown; and of the French, commonly black. The highlanders of Scotland are divided between red and black. Red hair is frequently found in the cold and elevated regions of the Alps; although black be the predominant complexion, at the foot of those mountains. The aborigines of America, like all people of colour, have black hair; and it is generally long and strait. The straitness of the hair may arise from the relaxation of the climate, or from the humidity of an uncultivated region. But, whatever be the cause, the Anglo-Americans already feel its influence: and curled locks, so frequent among their ancestors, are rare in the united states*.

NOTE.
*If we suppose different species to have been created, how shall we determine their number? - or where shall we, at present, find them clearly distinguished from all others? - or were the species of men made capable of being blended together, contrary to the nature of other animals, so that they should never be discriminated, thus rendering the end unnecessary, for which they are supposed to have been created? - if we have reason, from the varieties, that exist in the same family, or in the same nation, to conclude, that the Danes, the French, the Turks, and people even more remote, are of one species, have we not the same reason to conclude, that the nations beyond them, and who do not differ from the last, by more conspicuous distinctions, than the last differ from the first, are also of the same species. By pursuing this progression, we shall find but one species, from the equator to the pole.

NOTE.
*They are most rare in the southern states, and in those families, that are farthest descended from their European origin. Strait lank hair is almost a general characteristic of the Americans of the second and third race. It is impossible, however, to predict, what effect the clearing of the country, and the progress of cultivation, may hereafter produce on the hair, as well as other qualities, of the Americans. They will necessarily produce a great change in the climate, and consequently in the human constitution.

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Black is the most usual colour of the human hair, because those climates, that are most extensive, and most favourable to population, tend to the dark complexion. Climates, that are not naturally marked by a peculiar colour, may owe the accidental predominancy of one, to the constitutional qualities of an ancestral family - they may owe in prevalence of a variety of colours, to the early settlement of different families, or to the migrations or conquests of different nations, England is, perhaps for this reason, the country, in which is seen the greatest variety in the colour of the hair.
But the form of this excrescence, which principally merits observation, because it seems to be farthest removed from the ordinary laws of nature, is seen in that sparse and curled substance, peculiar to a part of Africa, and to a few of the Asiatic islands.
This peculiarity has been urged, as decisive character of a distinct species, with more assurance, than became philosophers but tolerably acquainted with the operations of nature. The sparseness of the African hair is analogous to the effect, which a warm climate has been shewn to have on other animals. Cold, by obstructing the perspiration, tends to throw out the perspirable matter, accumulated at the skin, in an additional coat of hair. A warm climate, by opening the pore, evaporates this matter, before it can be concreted into the substance of hair; and the laxness, and aperture of the pores, renders the hair liable to be easily eradicated by innumerable accidents.
Its curl may result in part, perhaps, from external heat, and in part from the nature of the substance or secretion, by which it is nourished. That it depends in a degree on the quality of the secretion, is rendered probable, from its appearance on the chin, and on other parts of the human body. Climate is as much distinguished, by the nature and proportion of the secretions, as by the degree of heat. Whatever be the nutriment of the hair, it seems to be combined, in the torrid zone of Africa, with some fluid of a highly volatile or ardent quality. That it is combined with a strong volatile salt, the rank and offensive smell of many African nations, gives us reason to suspect. Saline secretions tend to curl and to burn the hair. The evaporation of any volatile spirit would render its surface dry and disposed to contract, while the centre continuing distended by the vital motion, these opposite dilatations and contractions would necessarily produce a curve, and make the hair grow involved. This conjecture receives some confirmation, by observing that the negroes, born in the united states of America, are gradually losing the strong smell of the African zone; their hair is, at the same time, growing less involved, and becoming denser and longer*.
External and violent heat, parching the extremities of the hair, tends likewise to involve it. A hair, held near the fire, instantly coils itself up. The herbs, in the extreme heats of summer, roll up their leaves, during the day, and expand them again in the coolness of the evening. Africa is the hottest country on the globe. The ancients, who frequented the Asiatic zone, esteemed the African an uninhabitable zone of fire. The hair, as well as the whole human constitution, suffers, in this region, the effects of an intense heat.
The manners of the people add to the influence of the climate. Being savages, they have few arts to protect them from its intensity. The heat and serenity of the sky preserving the life of children, without much care of the

NOTE.
*Many negroes of the third race, in America, have thick, close hair, extended to four or five inches in length. In some, who take great pains to comb and dress it in oil, it is even longer, and they are able to extend it into a short queue. This is particularly the cafe with some domestic servants, who have more leisure and better means, than others, to cherish their hair. Many negroes, however, cut their hair as fast as it grows, preferring it short.

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parent, they seem to be the most negligent people of their offspring in the universe*. Able themselves to endure the extremes of that ardent climate, they inure their children from their most tender age. They suffer them to lie in the ashes of their huts, or to roll in the dust and sand, beneath the direct rays of a burning sun. The mother, if she is engaged, lays down the infant on the first spot she finds; and is seldom at the pains to seek the miserable shelter of a barren shrub, which is all that the interior country affords. Thus the hair is crisped, while the complexion is blackened by excessive heat*. There is probably a concurrence of both the preceding causes, in the production of the effect. The influence of heat, either external, or internal, or of both, in giving the form to the hair of the Africans, appears, not only from its sparseness and its curl, but from its colour. It is not of a shining, but an adult black; and its extremities tend to brown, as if it had been scorched by the fire.
Having treated so largely on the form of this excrescence, in that country where it deviates farthest from the common law of the species, I proceed to consider a few of the remaining varieties among mankind.
(To be continued.)

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An essay on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure in the human species. To which are added strictures on lord Kaims's discourse, on the original diversity of mankind. By the reverend Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. vice president, and professor of moral philosophy, in the college of New Jersey; and M. A. P. S. ---- P. 129.
THE whole of the Tartar race are of low stature. Their heads have a magnitude disproportioned to the rest of the body. Their shoulders are raised, and their necks are short. Their eyes are small, and appear, by the jutting of the eyebrows, over them, to be sunk in the head. The nose is short, and rises but little from the face. The cheek is elevated, and spread out on the sides. The whole of the features are remarkably coarse and deformed. And all these peculiarities are aggravated, as you proceed towards the pole, in the Laponian, Borandian, and Samoiede races, which, as Buffon justly remarks, are Tartars, reduced to the last degree of degeneracy. -A race of men, resembling the Laplanders, we find in a similar climate in America. The frozen countries round Hudson's bay are, except Siberia, the coldest in the world. And here the inhabitants are between four and five feet in height. Their heads are large-their eyes are little and weak-and their hands, feet, and limbs, uncommonly small.
These effects naturally result from extreme cold. Cold contracts the nerves, as it does all solid bodies. The inhabitants grow under the constriction of continual frost, as under the forcible compression of some powerful machine. Men will, therefore, be found in the highest latitudes, forever small, and of low stature*. The effective rigours of these frozen regions, affect chiefly to them with a more languid and feeble motion, has not sufficient vigour to resist the impressions of the cold. These limbs, consequently, suffer a greater contraction and diminution than the rest of the body. But the blood, flowing with warmth and force to the breast and head, and perhaps with the more force, as its course to the extremities is obstructed, distends these parts to a disproportionate size. There is a regular gradation, in the effect of the climate, and in the figure of the people, from the Tartars to the tribes round Hudson's bay. The Tartars are taller and thicker than the Laplanders, or the Samoiedes, because their climate is less severe. The northern Americans are the most diminutive of all; their extremities are the smallest, and their breast and head of the most disproportioned magnitude severe with the Samoiedes, they are reduced to a more savage state of society+.

NOTE.
*A moderate degree of cold is necessary to give force and tone to the nerves, and to raise the human body to its largest size. But extreme cold overstrains and contracts them. Therefore, these northern tribes are not only small, but weak and timid.
VOL. VI. No. III.
+ The neighbourhood of the Russians, of the Chinese, and even of Tartars, who have adopted many improvements from the civilized nations that border upon them gives the Laplanders and Siberians considerable advantages over the northern Americans, who are in the most abject state of savage life, and totally destitute of every art, either for convenience or protection. The principles, stated above, apply to all these nations, in proportion to the degree of cold, combined with the degree of savageness. The inhabitants of the northern civilized countries of Europe, are generally of lower stature than those in the middle regions. But civilization, and a milder climate, prevent them from degenerating equally with the northern Asiatics and Americans.

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Extreme cold likewise tends to form the next peculiarities of these races, their high shoulders, and their short necks. Severe frost prompts men to raise their shoulders, as if to protect the neck, and to cherish the warmth of the blood that flows to the head; and the habits of an eternal winter will fix them in that position. The neck will appear shortened beyond its due proportion, not only because it suffers an equal contraction with the other parts of the body; but because the head and breast, being increased to a disproportioned size, will encroach upon its length; and the natural elevation of the shoulders will bury what remains, so deep as to give the head an appearance of resting upon them for its support. That these peculiarities are the effect of climate*, the examples, produced by French missionaries in China, of most respectable characters, leave us no room to doubt, who assure us, that they have seen, even in the forty-eighth degree of northern latitude, the posterity of Chinese families who had become perfect Tartars in their figure and aspect; and that they were distinguished, in particular, by the same shortness of the neck, and by the same elevation of the shoulders.+
That coarse and deformed features are the necessary production of the climate, cannot have escaped the attention of the most incurious observer. Let us attend to the effects of extreme cold. It contracts the aperture of the eyes-it draws down the brows-it

NOTES.
*As climate is often known peculiarly to affect certain parts of the body, philosophy, if it were necessary, could find no more difficulty in accounting for the short necks of the Tartars, and other northern tribes, as a disease of the climate, than she finds in giving the same account for the thick necks so frequently found in the regions of the Alps. But, the observations before made, will probably convince the attentive reader, that there is no need to resort to such a solution of the phenomenon, when it seems so easily to be explained by the known operation of natural causes.
+ See Recueil 24 des lettres édifiantes.

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raises the cheek, by the pressure of the under jaw against the upper; it diminishes the face in length, and spreads it out at the sides-and distorts the shape of every feature.
This, which is only a transient impression in our climate, soon effaced by the conveniences of society, and by the changes of the seasons, becomes a heightened and permanent effect in those extreme regions, arising from the greater intensity, and the constant action of the cause. The naked and defenceless condition of the people, augments its violence-and beginning its operation from infancy, when the features are most tender and susceptible of impression, and continuing it, without remission, till they have attained their utmost growth, they become fixed at length in the point of greatest deformity, and form the character of the Hudson or Siberian countenance.
The principal peculiarities, that may require a farther illustration, are the smallness of the nose, and depression of the middle of the face-the prominence of the forehead-and the extreme weakness of the eyes.
The middle of the face is that part which is most exposed to the cold, and consequently suffers most from its power of contraction. It first meets the wind, and it is farthest removed from the seat of warmth in the head. But a circumstance of equal, or, perhaps, of greater importance, on this subject, is, that the inhabitants of frozen climates, naturally drawing their breadth more through the nose, than through the mouth +, thereby direct the greatest impulse of the air on that feature, and the parts adjacent. Such a continual stream of air augments the cold, and, by increasing the contraction of the parts, restrains the freedom of their growth ||. Hence, likewise, will arise an easy solution of the next peculiarity, the prominence of the forehead. The superior warmth and force of life, in the brain, that fills the upper part of the head, will naturally increase its size, and make it overhang the contracted parts below.
Lastly, the eyes, in these rigorous climates, are singularly affected. By the projection of the eye-brows, they appear to be sunk into the head; the cold naturally diminishes their aperture; and the intensity of the frost, concurring with the glare of eternal snows, so overstrains these tender organs, that they are always weak, and the inhabitants are often liable to blindness, at an early age.
In the temperate zone, on the other hand, and in a point rather below than above the middle region of temperature, the agreeable warmth of the air, disposing the nerves to the most free and easy expansion, will open the features, and increase the orb of the eye*. Here, a large full eye, being the tendency of nature, will grow to be esteemed a perfection. And, in the strain of Homer, Bownis Nolvia Hgn would convey, to a Greek, an idea of divine beauty, that is hardly intelligible to an inhabitant of the north of Europe. All the principles of the human constitution, unfold-

NOTES.
+ A frosty air, inhaled by the mouth, chills the body more than when it is received by the nostrils; probably, because a greater quantity enters at a time. Nature, therefore, prompts men to keep the mouth closed, during the prevalence of intense frost.
|| On the same principle, the mercury, in the thermometer, may be contracted and suck into the bulb, by directing upon it a constant stream of air, from a pair of bellows, if the bulb be frequently touched, during the operation, with any fluid, that, by a speedy evaporation, tends to increase the cold.
*It is perhaps worthy of remark, that, in the three continents, the temperate climates, and eternal cold, border so nearly upon one another, that we pass almost instantly from the former to the latter. And we find the Laplander, the Semoiede, the Mongou, and the tribes round Hudson's bay, in the neighbourhood of the Swede, the Russian, the Chinese, and the Canadian. Without attention to this remark, hasty reasoners will make the sudden change of features, in these nations, an objection against the preceding philosophy.

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ing themselves freely in such a region, and nature acting without constraint, will be there seen most nearly in that perfection, which was the original design and idea of the Creator +.
[II]. Having endeavoured to ascertain the power of climate, in producing many varieties in the human species, I proceed to illustrate the influence of the state of society.
On this subject I observe,
1. In the first place, that the effect of climate is augmented by a savage state, and corrected by a state of civilization. And,
2. In the next place, that, by the state of society, many varieties in the human person are entirely formed.
In the first place, the effect of climate is augmented by a savage state of society, and corrected by a state of civilization.
A naked savage, seldom enjoying the protection of a miserable hut, and compelled to lodge on the bare ground, and under the open sky, imbibes the influence of the sun and atmosphere at every pore. He inhabits an uncultivated region, filled with stagnant waters, and covered with putrid vegetables, that fall down, and corrupt on the spot where they have grown. He pitches his wigwam on the side of a river, that he may enjoy the convenience of fishing, as well as hunting. The vapour of rivers, the exhalations of marshes, and the noxious effluvia of decaying vegetables, fill the whole atmosphere, in an unimproved country, and tend to give a dark and bilious hue to the complexion ±. And the sun, acting immediately on the skin in this state, will necessarily impress a deep colour.
This effect is augmented by the practice of painting, to which savages are often obliged to have recourse, in order to protect themselves from the impression of the humid earth, on which they lie, or of a noxious atmosphere, to which they are exposed without covering. Painting, taken up at first through necessity, is afterwards employed as an ornament; and a savage is seldom seen without having his skin covered with some composition, that spoils the fineness of its texture, and impairs the beauty and clearness of its natural colour. This is known to be the effect of the finest paints and washes, that are used for the same purpose, in polished society. Much more will it be the effect of those coarse and filthy unguents which are employed by savages. And as we see, that coloured marks, impressed by punctures in the skin, become indelible, it is reasonable to believe, that the particles of paints, insinuated into its texture by forcible and frequent rubbing, will tend, in like manner, to create a dark and permanent colour.

NOTES.
+ It may perhaps gratify my countrymen, to reflect, that the united states occupy those latitudes, that have ever been most favourable to the beauty of the human form. When time shall have accommodated the constitution to its new state, and cultivation shall have meliorated the climate, the beauties of Greece and Circassia may be renewed in America; as there are not a few already, who rival those of any other quarter of the globe.
± The forests, in uncultivated countries, absorb a great part of these putrid vapours, otherwise they would be contagious and mortal. But as nature never makes her work perfect, but leaves the completion of her schemes to exercise the industry and wisdom of man, the growing vegetables do not absorb the whole effluvia of the decaying, and of the noxious marshes that overspread the face of such a region. Nothing but civilization and culture can perfectly purify the atmosphere. Uncultivated, as well as warm countries, therefore, naturally tend to a bilious habit, and a dark complexion. It may seem an objection against this observation, that in America we often find bilious disorders augmented in consequence of cutting down the timber, and extending the plantations. The reason of which, probably, is, that the indolence or necessities of a new country, frequently lead men to clear the ground, without draining the marshes; or small plantations are surrounded by unimproved forests. Thus, the vegetables, that absorbed the noxious moisture, being removed, it is left to fall in greater abundance on man.

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To this may be added, that the frequent fumigations, by which they are obliged to guard against the annoyance of innumerable infects, in undrained and uncultivated countries-and the smoke, with which their huts, unskilfully built, and without chimneys, are eternally filled, contribute to augment the natural darkness of the savage complexion. Smoke, we perceive, discolours the skin of those labourers and mechanics, who are habitually immersed in it-it stains every object, long exposed to its action, by entering the pore, and adhering strongly to the surface. It insinuates itself, in a similar manner, into the pores of the skin, and there tends to change the complexion, on the same principles, that it is changed by inserted paints.
And, lastly, the hardships of their condition, that weaken and exhaust the principle of life-their scanty and meagre fare, which wants the succulence and nourishment that give freshness and vigour to the constitution-the uncertainty of their provision, which sometimes leaves them to languish with want, and sometimes enables them to overstrain themselves by a surfeit-and their entire inattention to personal and domestic cleanliness-all have a prodigious effect to darken the complexion, to relax and emaciate the constitution, and to render the features coarse and deformed. Of the influence of these causes, we have an example, in persons reduced to extreme poverty, who are usually as much distinguished by their thin habit, their uncouth features, and their swarthy and squalid aspect, as by the meanness of their garb. Nakedness, exposure, negligence of appearance, want of cleanliness, bad lodging, and meagre diet, so discolour and injure their form, as to enable us to frame some judgment of the degree, in which such causes will contribute to augment the influence of climate in savage life. Independently on climate, these causes will render it impossible, that a savage should ever be fair. And, the co-operation of both, will usually render men, in that state of society, extremely dark in their complexion. And, generally, they will be more coarse and hard in their features, and less robust in their persons, than men who enjoy, with temperance, the advantages of civilized society*.
As a savage state contributes to augment the influence of climate; or, at least, to exhibit its worst effects upon the human constitution; a state of civilization, on the other hand, tends to correct it, by furnishing innumerable means of guarding against its power. The conveniencies of clothing

NOTE.
*One of the greatest difficulties, with which a writer on this subject has to combat, is the ignorance and superficial observation of the bulk of travellers, who travel without the true spirit of remark. The first objects that meet their view, in a new country, and among a new people, seize their fancy, and are recited with exaggeration; and they seldom have judgment and impartiality sufficient to examine and reason with justness and caution-and, from innumerable facts, which necessarily have many points of difference among themselves, to draw general conclusions. Such conclusions, when most justly drawn, they think they have refuted, when they discover a single example that seems not to coincide with them. In reasonings of this kind there are few persons who sufficiently consider, that, however accurately we may investigate causes and effects, our limited knowledge will always leave particular examples that will seem to be exceptions from any general principle. To apply these remarks. A few examples, perhaps, may occur, among savages, of regular and agreeable features, or of strong and muscular bodies; as in civilized society, we meet with some rare instances of astonishing beauty. If, by chance, a person of narrow observation, and incomprehensive mind, have seen two or three examples of this kind, he will be ready, on this slender foundation, to contradict the general remark I have made, concerning the coarse and uncouth features of savages, and their want of those fine and muscular proportions, if I may call them so, in the human body, that indicate strength, combined with swiftness. Yet, it is certain, that the general countenance of savage life, is much more uncouth and coarse, more unmeaning and wild, as will afterwards be seen, when I come to point out the causes of it, than the countenance of polished society: and the person is more slender, and rather fitted for the chance, than robust, and capable of force and labour. An American Indian, in particular, is commonly swift; he is rarely very strong. And it has been remarked, in the many expeditions which the people of these states have undertaken against the savages, that, in close quarters, the strength of an Anglo-American is usually superior to that of an Indian of the same size. The muscles, likewise, on which the fine proportions of person so much depend, are generally smaller and more lax, than they are in improved society, that is not corrupted by luxury, or debilitated by sedentary occupations. Their limbs, therefore, though strait, are less beautifully turned. A deception often passes on the senses, in judging of the beauty of savages - and description is often more exaggerated than the senses are deceived. We do not expect beauty in savage life. When, therefore, we happen to perceive it, the contrast, with the usual condition of that state, imposes on the mind. And the exalted representations of savage beauty, which we sometimes read, are true only by comparison with savages. There is a difference, in this respect, between man, and many of the interior animals, which were intended to run wild in the forest. They are always the most beautiful, when they enjoy their native liberty, and range. They decay and droop, when attempted to be domesticated, or confined. But man, being designed for society and civilization, attains, in that state, the greatest perfection of his form, as well of his whole nature.

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and of lodging-the plenty, and healthful quality of food-a country drained, cultivated, and freed from noxious effluvia-improved ideas of beauty-the constant study of elegance, and the infinite arts for attaining it, even in personal figure and appearance, give cultivated an immense advantage over savage society, in its attempts to counteract the influence of climate, and to beautify the human form.
2. I come now to observe, what is of much more importance on this part of the subject, that all the features of the human countenance are modified, and its entire expression radically formed, by the state of society.
Every object, that impresses the senses, and every emotion, that rises in the mind, affects the features of the face, the index of our feelings, and contributes to form the infinitely various countenance of man. Paucity of ideas creates a vacant and unmeaning aspect. Agreeable and cultivated scenes compose the features, and render them regular and gay. Wild, and deformed, and solitary forests, tend to impress on the countenance, an image of their own rudeness. Great varieties are created by diet and modes of living. The delicacies of refined life give a soft and elegant form to the features. Hard fare, and constant exposure to the injuries of the weather, render them coarse and uncouth. The infinite attentions of polished society, give variety and expression to the face. The want of interesting emotions, leaving its muscles lax and unexerted, they are suffered to distend themselves to a larger and grosser size, and acquire soft unvarying swell, that is not distinctly marked by any idea. A general standard of beauty has its effect in forming the human countenance and figure. Every passion, and mode of thinking, has its peculiar expression-And all the preceding characters have again many variations, according to their degrees of strength, according to their combinations with other principles, and according to the peculiarities of constitution or of climate, that form the ground, on which the different impressions are received. As the degrees of civilization-as the ideas, passions, and objects of society in different countries, and under different forms of government, are infinitely various, they open a boundless field for variety in the human countenance. It is impossible to enumerate them. They are not the same in any two ages of the world. It would be unnecessary to enumerate

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them, as my object is not become a physiognomist, but to evince the possibility of so many differences existing in one species; and to suggest a proper mode of reasoning, on new varieties as they may occur to our observation.
For this purpose, I shall, in the first place, endeavour, by several facts and illustrations to evince, that the state of society has a great effect in varying the figure and complexion of mankind.
I shall the shew, in what manner, some of the most distinguishing features of the savage, and particularly of the American savage, with whom we are best acquainted, naturally result from the rude condition in which they exist. (To be continued.)

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An essay on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure in the human species. To which are added, strictures on lord Kaims's discourse, on the original diversity of mankind. By the reverend Samuel Stanhope Smith, D.D. vice-president, and professor of moral philosophy, in the college of New Jersey; and M. A. P. S. - P. 186.
TO evince that the state of society has a great effect in varying the figure and complexion of mankind, I shall derive my first illustration from the several classes of men in polished nations. And then I shall shew that men, in different states of society, have changed, and that they have it continually in their power to change, in a great degree, the aspect of the species, according to any general ideas or standard of human beauty which they may have adopted.
1. And, in the first place, between the several classes of men in polished nations, who may be considered as people in different states of society, we discern great and obvious distinctions, arising from their social habits, ideas, and employments.
The poor and labouring part of the community are usually more swarthy and squalid in their complexion, more hard in their features, and more coarse and ill formed in their limbs, than persons of better fortune, and more liberal means of subsistence. They want the delicate tints of colour, the pleasing regularity of feature, and the elegance and fine proportions of person. There may be particular exceptions. Luxury may disfigure the one-a fortunate coincidence of circumstances may give a happy assemblage of features to the other. But these exceptions do not invalidate the general observation*.

NOTE.
*It ought to be kept in mind, through the whole of the following illustrations, that, when mention is made of the superior beauty and proportions of persons in the higher classes of society, the remark is general. It is not intended to deny that there exist exceptions both of deformity among the great, and of beauty among the poor: and those only are intended to be described, who enjoy their fortune with temperance: because luxury and excess tend equally with extreme poverty, to debilitate and disfigure the human constitution.

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Such distinctions become more considerable by time, after families have held for ages the same stations in society. They are most conspicuous in those countries, in which the laws have made the most complete and permanent division of ranks. What an immense difference exists, in Scotland, between the chiefs and the commonalty of the highland clans? If they had been separately found in different countries, the philosophy of some writers would have ranged them in different species. A similar distinction takes place between the nobility and peasantry of France, of Spain, of Italy, of Germany. It is even more conspicuous in many of the eastern nations, where a wider distance exists between the highest and the lowest classes in society. The naires or nobles of Calicut, in the East Indies, have, with the usual ignorance and precipitancy of travellers, benn pronounced a different race from the populace; because the former, elevated by their rank, and devoted only to martial studies and achievments, are distinguished by that manly beauty and elevated stature, so frequently found with the profession of arms, especially when united with nobility of descent; the latter, poor and laborious, exposed to hardships, and left, by their rank, without the spirit or the hope to better their condition, are much more deformed and diminutive in their persons; and, in their complexion, much more black. In France, says Busson, you may distinguish by their aspect, not only the nobility from the peasantry, but the superior orders of nobility from the inferior, these from citizens, and citizens from peasants. You may even distinguish the peasants of one part of the country, from those of another, according to the fertility of the soil, or the nature of its product. The same observation has been made on the inhabitants of different countries in England. And I have been assured, by a most judicious and careful observer, that the difference between the people in the eastern, and those in the western countries in Scotland, is sensible and striking. The farmers, who cultivate the fertile counties of the Lothians, have a fairer complexion, and a better figure, than those who live in the west, and obtain a more coarse and scanty subsistence from a barren soil*.

NOTE.
*It is well known, that coarse and meagre food is ever accompanied in mankind, with hard features and a dark complexion. Every change of diet, and every variety in the manner of preparing it, has some effect on the human constitution. A servant now lives in my family, who was bound to me at ten years of age. Her parents were in abject poverty. The child was, in consequence, extremely sallow in her complexion, she was emaciated, and, as is common to children who have lain in the ashes and dirt of miserable huts, her hair was frittered and worn away to the length of little more than two inches. This girl has, by a fortunate change in her mode of living, and indeed by living more like my own children than like a servant, become in the space of four years, fresh and ruddy in her complexion, her hair is long and flowing, and she is not badly made in her person. A similar instance is now in the family of a worthy clergyman, a friend and neighbour of mine. And many such instances of the influence of diet, and modes of living, will occur to a careful and attentive observer. It equally affects the inferior animals. The horse, according to his treatment, may be infinitely varied in shape and size. The flesh of many species of game differs both in taste and colour according to the nature of the grounds on which they have fed. The flesh of hares, that have fed on high lands, is much fairer than those that have fed in vallies and on damp grounds. And every keeper of cattle knows how much the firmness and flavour of the meat depends upon the manner of feeding. Nor is this unaccountable. For as each element has a different effect on the animal system-and as the elements are combined in various proportions in different kinds of food, the means of subsistence will necessarily have a great influence on the human figure and complexion. The difference, however, between the common people in the eastern and western counties of Scotland, in several counties in England, and in other nations, arises, perhaps, not only from their food, and the soil which they inhabit, but, in part likewise, from their occupations, as husbandmen, mechanics, or manufacturers. Husbandry has generally a happier effect on personal appearance, than the sedentary employments of manufacture.

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If, in England, there exists less difference between the figure and appearance of persons in the higher and lower classes of society, than is seen in many other countries of Europe, it is because a more general diffusion of liberty and wealth has reduced the different ranks more nearly to a level. Science and military talents open the way to eminence and to nobility. Encouragements to industry, and ideas of liberty, favour the acquisition of fortune by the lowest orders of citizens - And, these not being prohibited, by the laws or customs of the nation, from aspiring to connexions with the highest ranks, families in that country are frequently blended. You often find in citizens the beautiful figure and complexion of the noblest blood; and, in noble houses, the coarse features that were formed in lower life.
Such distinctions are, as yet, less obvious in America, because, the people enjoy a greater equality; and the frequency of migration has not permitted any soil, or state of local manners, to impress its character deeply on the constitution. Equality of rank and fortune, in the citizens of the united states, similarity of occupations, and of society, have produced such uniformity of character, that, hitherto, they are not strongly marked by such differences of feature as arise solely from social distinctions. And yet there are beginning to be formed, independently on climate, certain combinations of features, the result of social ideas, that already serve, in a degree, to distinguish the states from one another. Hereafter they will advance into more considerable and characteristic distinctions.
If the white inhabitants of America afford us less conspicuous instances, than some other nations, of the power of society, and of the difference of ranks, in varying the human form, the blacks in the southern republics, afford one that is highly worthy the attention of philosophers-It has often occurred to my own observation.
The field slaves are badly fed, clothed, and lodged. They live in small huts, on the plantations where they labour, remote from the society and example of their superiors. Living by themselves, they retain many of the customs and manners of their African ancestors. The domestic servants, on the other hand, who are kept near the persons, or employed in the families of their masters, are treated with great lenity, their service is light, they are fed and clothed like their superiors, they see their manners, adopt their habits, and insensibly receive the same ideas of elegance and beauty. The field slaves are, in consequence, slow in changing the aspect and figure of Africa. The domestic servants have advanced far before them in acquiring the agreeable and regular features, and the expressive countenance of civilized society. The former are frequently ill shaped. They preserve, in a great degree, the African lips, and nose, and hair. Their genius is dull, and their countenance sleepy and stupid. The latter are strait and well proportioned; their hair extended to three, four, and sometimes even, to six or eight inches; the size and shape of the mouth handsome, their features regular, their capacity good, and their look animated*.

NOTE.
* The features of the Negroes in American have undergone a greater change than the complexion; because depending more on the state of society, than on the climate, they are sooner susceptible of alteration, from its emotions, habits, and ideas. This is strikingly verified in the field and domestic slaves. The former, even in the third generation, retain, in a great degree, the countenance of Africa. The nose, though less flat, and the lips, though less thick, than in the native Africans, yet are much more flat, and thick, than in the family servants of the same race. These have the nose raised, the mouth and lips of a moderate size, the eyes lively and sparkling, and often the whole composition of the features extremely agreeable. The hair grows sensibly longer in each succeeding race; especially in those who dress and cultivate it with care. After many enquiries, I have found, that, wherever the hair is short and closely curled in negroes of the second or third race, it is because they frequently cut it, to save themselves the trouble of dressing. The great difference between the domestic and field slaves, gives reason to believe, that, if they were perfectly free, enjoyed property, and were admitted to a liberal participation of the society, rank, and privileges of their masters, they would change their African peculiarities much faster.

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Another example of the power of society is well known to every man acquainted with the savage tribes dispersed along the frontiers of these republics. There you frequently see persons who have been captivated from the states, and grown up, from infancy to middle age, in the habits of savage life. In that time, they universally contract such a strong resemblance of the natives in their countenance, and even in their complexion, as to afford a striking proof that the differences which exist, in the same latitude, between the Anglo-American and the Indian, depend principally on the state of society*. The college of New Jersey furnishes, at present, a counterpart to this example. A young Indian, now about fifteen years of age, was brought from his nation, a number of years ago, to receive an education in this institution. And from an accurate observation of him, during the greater part of that time, I have received the most perfect conviction that the same state of society, united with the same climate, would make the Anglo-American and the Indian countenance very nearly approximate. He was too far advanced in savage habits, to render the observation complete, because, all impressions received in the tender and pliant state of the human constitution, before the age of seven years, are more deep and permanent, than in any future, and equal period of life. There is an obvious difference between him and his fellow-students in the largeness of the mouth, and thickness of the lips, in the elevation of the cheek, in the darkness of the complexion, and the contour of the face. But these differences are sensibly diminishing. They seem to diminish the falter, in proportion, as he loses that vacancy of eye, and that lugubrious wildness of countenance, peculiar to the savage state, and acquires the agreeable expression of civil life. The expression of the eye, and the softening of the features, to civilized emotions and ideas, seems to have removed more than half the difference between him and us. His colour, (though it is much lighter than the complexion of the native savage, as is evident from the stain of blushing, that, on a near inspection, is instantly discernible) still forms the principal distinction*. There is less difference between his features and those of his fellow-students, than we often see between persons of civilized society. After a careful attention to each particular feature, and comparison of it with the correspondent feature in us, I am now able to discover but little difference. And yet there is an obvious difference in the whole countenance. This circumstance has led me to conclude that the varieties among mankind are much less than they appear to be. Each single trait or limb, when examined apart, has, perhaps, no diversity that may not be easily accounted for, from known and obvious causes. Particular differences are small. It is the result of the whole that surprises us, by its magnitude. The combined effect of many minute varieties, like the product arising from the multiplication of many small numbers, appears great and unaccountable. And we have not patience, or, it may be, skill, to divide this combined result into its least portions, and to see, in that state, how easy it is of comprehension or solution.
The state of society comprehends diets, clothing, lodging, manners, habits, face of the country, objects of science, religion, interests, passions, and ideas of all kinds, infinite in number and variety. If each of these causes be admitted to make, as undoubtedly they do, a small variation on the human countenance, the different combinations and results of the whole, must necessarily be very great; and, combined with the effects of climate, will be adequate to account for all the varieties we find among mankind*.
Another origin of the varieties springing from the state of society, is found, in the power which men possess over themselves, of producing great changes in the human form, according to any common standard of beau-

NOTE.
*The resemblance between these captives, and the native savages, is so strong, as at first to strike every observer with astonishment. Being taken in infancy, before society could have made any impressions upon them, and spending in the solitude and rudeness of savage life that tender and forming age, they grow up with the same apathy of countenance, the same lugubrious wildness, the same swelling of the features and muscles of the face, the same form and attitude of the limbs, and the same characteristic gait, which is a great elevation of the feet when they walk, and the toe somewhat turned in, after the manner of a duck. Growing up perfectly naked, and exposed to the constant action of the sun and weather, amidst all the hardships of the savage state, their colour becomes very deep. As it is but a few shades lighter than that of the natives, it is, at a small distance, hardly distinguishable. This example affords another proof of the greater ease with which a dark colour can be impressed, than effaced from a skin originally fair. The causes of colour are active in their operation, and speedily make a deep impression. White is the ground on which this operation is received. And a white skin is to be preserved only by protecting it from the action of these causes. Protection has merely a negative influence, and must therefore be slow in its effects; especially as long as the smallest degree of positive agency is suffered from the original causes of colour. And as the skin retains, with great constancy, impressions once received, all dark colours will, on both accounts, be much less mutable than the fair complexion. That period of time, therefore, which would be sufficient in a savage state, to change a white skin to the darkest hue the climate can impress, would, with the most careful protection, lighten a black colour, only a few shades. And because this positive and active influence produces its effects so much more speedily and powerfully than the negative influence, that consists merely in guarding against its operation; and since we see that the skin retains impressions so long, and the tanning incurred by exposing it one day to the sun, is not in many days to be effaced, we may justly conclude, that a dark colour, once contracted, if it be exposed but a few days in the year to the action of the sun and weather, will be many ages before it can be entirely effaced. And unless the difference of climate be so considerable as to operate every great changes on the internal constitution, and to alter the whole state of the secretions, the negro colour, for example, may, by the exposure of a poor and servile state, be rendered almost perpetual.

NOTE.
*See the preceding note, for a reason why the complexion is less changed than many of the features.

NOTE.
*As all these principles may be made to operate in very different ways, the effect of one may, often, be counteracted, in a degree, by that of another. And climate will essentially change the effects of all. The people in different parts of the same country, may, from various combinations of these causes, be very different. And, from the variety of combination, the poor of one country may have better complexion, features, and proportions of person, than those in another, who enjoy the most favourable advantages of fortune. Without attention to these circumstances, a hasty observer will be apt to pronounce the remarks in the essay to be ill-sounded, if he examines the human form, in any country, by the effect that is said to arise from one principle alone, and does not, at the same time, take in the concomitant or correcting influence of other causes.
VOL. VI. No. IV.

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ty which they may have adopted. The standard of human beauty, in any country, is a general idea, formed from the combined effect of climate and of the state of society. And it reciprocally contributes to increase the effect from which it springs. Every nation varies as much from others in ideas of beauty, as in personal appearance. Whatever be that standard, there is a general effort to attain it, with more or less ardor and success, in proportion to the advantages which men possess in society, and to the estimation in which beauty is held.
To this object tend the infinite pains to compose the features, and to form the attitudes of children, to give them the gay and agreeable countenance that is created in company, and to extinguish all deforming emotions of the passions. To this object tend many of the arts of polished life. How many drugs are sold, and how many applications are made for the improvement of beauty? how many artists of different kinds live upon this idea of beauty? If we dance, beauty is the object; if we use the sword, it is more for beauty than defence. If this general effort after appearance sometimes leads the decrepit and deformed into absurdity, it has, however, a great and national effect. -Of its effect in creating distinctions among nations, in which different ideas prevail, and different means are employed for attaining them, we may frame some conception, from the distinctions that exist in the same nation, in which similar ideas and similar means are used, only in different degrees. What a difference is there between the soft and elegant tints of complexion in genteel life, and the coarse ruddiness of the vulgar? - between the uncouth features and unpliant limbs of an unpolished rustic, and the complacency of countenance, the graceful and easy air and figure of an improved citizen?-between the shape and meaning face of a well bred lady, and the soft and plump simplicity of a country girl?-we now easily account for these differences, because they are familiar to us, or, because we see the operation of the causes. But if we should find an entire nation distinguished by one of these characters, and another by the contrary, some writers would pronounce them different races; although a true philosopher ought to understand that the cultivation of opposite ideas of beauty must have a great effect in diversifying the human countenance, than various degrees, or modes, of cultivating the same ideas. The countenance of Europe was more various, three centuries ago, than it is at present. The diversities, that depend upon this cause, are insensibly wearing away, as the progress of refinement is gradually approximating the manners and ideas of the people to one standard. But the influence of a general idea, or standard, of the human form-and the pains taken, or the means employed, to being our own persons to it-are, through their familiarity, often little observed. The means employed by other nations, who aim at a different idea, attract more notice by their novelty. The nations beyond the Indus, as well as the Tartars, from whom they seem to have derived their ideas of beauty with their origin*, universally admire small eyes and large ears. They are at great pains, therefore, to compress their eyes at the corners, and to stretch their ears by heavy weights appended to them, by drawing them frequently with the hand, and by cutting their rims, so that they may hang down to their shoulders, which they consider as the highest beauty. On the same principle, they extirpate the hair from their bodies; and on the face, which they shave, they leave only a few tufts here and there. The Tartars often extirpate the whole hair of the head, except a knot on the crown, which they braid and adorn

NOTE.
*It is probable that the countries of India and China might have been peopled before the regions of Tartary; but, the frequent conquests which they have suffered, and particularly the former, from Tartarian nations, have changed their habits, ideas and persons, even more perhaps than Europe was changed by the deluge of barbarians that overwhelmed it, in the fifth century. The present nations beyond the Indus are, in effect, Tartars changed by the power of climate, and of a new state of society.

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in different manners. Similar ideas of beauty, with regard to the eyes, the ears, and the hair - and similar customs, in the aborigines of America, are no inconsiderable proofs, that this continent has been peopled from the north-eastern regions of Asia +. In Arabia and Greece, large eyes are esteemed beautiful; and in these countries they take extraordinary pains, to stretch the lids, and extend their aperture. In India, they dilate the forehead in infancy, by the application of broad plates of lead. In China, they compress the feet. In Caffraria, and many other parts of Africa, and in Lapland, they flatten the nose, in order to accomplish a caprious idea of beauty. The skin, in many nations, is darkened by art; and all savages esteem certain kinds of deformity to be perfections; and strive to heighten the admiration of their persons, by augmenting the wildness of their features. Through every country on the globe, we might proceed in this manner, pointing out the many arts which the inhabitants practise to reach some favourite idea of the human form-arts, that insensibly, through a course of time, produce a great and conspicuous effect-arts, which are usually supposed to have only a personal influence; but which really have an operation on posterity also. The process of nature in this is as little known as in all her other works. The effect is frequently seen. Every remarkable change of feature that has grown into a habit of the body, is transmitted with other personal properties, to offspring. The coarse features of labouring people, created by hardships, and by long exposure to the weather, are communicated. The broad feet of the rustic, that have been spread by often treading the naked ground-and the large hand and arm, formed by constant labour-are discernible in children. The increase or diminution of any other limb, or feature, formed by habits that aim at an idea of beauty, may, in like manner, be imparted. We continually see the effect of this principle on the inferior animals. The figure, the colour, and properties of the horse, are easily changed according to the reigning taste. Out of the same original stock, the Germans who are settled in Pennsylvania, raise large and heavy horses; the Irish raise such as are much lighter and smaller. According to the pains bestowed, you may raise from the same race, horses for the saddle and horses for the draught. Even the colour can be speedily changed, according as fashion is pleased to vary its caprice. And, if taste prescribes it, the finest horses shall, in a short time, be black or white, or bay*. Human nature, much more pliant, and affected by a greater variety of causes from food, from clothing, from lodging, and from manners, is still more easily susceptible of change, according to any general standard, or idea of the human form. To this principle, as well as to the manner of living, it may be, in part, attributed, that the Germans, the Swedes, and

NOTE.
+ The celebrated dr. Robertson, in his history of America, deceived by the misinformation of hasty or ignorance observers, had ventured to assert that the natives of America have no hair on their face or on their body; and like many other philosophers, has set himself to account for a fact that never existed. It may be laid down almost as a general maxim, that the first relations of travellers are false. They judge of appearances in a new country under the prejudices of ideas and habits contracted in their own. They judge from particular instances, that may happen to have occurred to them, of the stature, the figure, and the features of a whole nation. Philosophers ought never to admit a fact on the relations of travellers, till their characters for intelligence and accurate observation, be well ascertained; nor even then, till the observation has been repeated, extended, and compared in many different lights, with other facts. The Indians have hair on the face and body; but from a false sense of beauty they extirpate it with great pains. And traders among them are well informed, that tweezers for that purpose, are profitable articles of commerce.
* By choosing horses of the requisite qualities, to supply the studs.

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the French, in different parts of the united states, who live chiefly among themselves, and cultivate the habits and ideas of the countries from which they emigrated, retain, even in our climate, a strong resemblance of their primitive stocks. Those, on the other hand, who have not confined themselves to the contracted circle of their countrymen, but have mingled freely with the Anglo-Americans, entered into their manners, and adopted their ideas, have assumed such a likeness to them, that it is not easy now to distinguish from one another, people who have sprung from such different origins.
(To be continued.)

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Speech of William Pinckney, esq. of Hartford county, Maryland, in the assembly of that state, at their last session, when the report of a committee of the house, favourable to a petition for the relief of the oppressed slaves, was under consideration.
MR. SPEAKER,
BEFORE I proceed to deliver my sentiments, on the subject matter of the report, under consideration, I must entreat the members of this house, hear me with patience, and not to condemn what I may happen to advance, in support of the opinion I have formed, until they shall have heard me out. I am conscious, sir, that upon this occasion, I have long-established principles to combat, and deep-rooted prejudices to defeat; that I have fears and apprehensions to silence, which the acts of former legislatures have sanctioned, and that (what is equivalent to a host of difficulties) the popular impressions are against me: but, if I am honoured with the same indulgent attention, which the house has been pleased to afford me on past subjects of deliberation, I do not despair of surmounting all these obstacles, in the common cause of justice, humanity, and policy. The report appears to me to have two objects in view: to annihilate the existing restraints on the voluntary emancipation of slaves, adn to relieve a particular offspring from the punishment, heretofore inflicted on them for the mere transgressions of their parents. To the whole report, separately and collectively, my hearty assent, my cordial assistance, shall be given. It was the policy of this country, sir, from an early period of colonization, down to the revolution, to encourage an importation of slaves, for purposes, which (if conjecture may be indulged) had been far better answered without their assistance. That this inhuman policy was a disgrace to the colony, a dishonour to the legislature, and a scandal to human nature, we need not at this enlightened period labour to prove. The generous mind, that has adequate ideas of the inherent rights of mankind, and knows the value of them, must feel its indignation rise against the shameful traffic, that introduces slavery into a country, which seems to have been designed by providence, as an asylum for those whom the arm of power had persecuted, and not as a nursery for wretches, stripped of every single privilege which heaven intended for its rational creatures, and reduced to a level with - nay become themselves - the mere goods and chattels of their matters.
Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the state has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour; but the law of the land - which (however oppressive and unjust, however inconsistent with the great ground work of the late revolution, and our present fame of government) we cannot, in prudence, or from a regard to individual rights, abolish - has authorised a slavery, as bad, or perhaps worse than, the most absolute, unconditional servitude, that ever England knew, in the early ages of its empire, under the tyrannical policy of the Danes, the feudal tenures of the Saxons, or the pure villanage of the Normans. But, mr. Speaker, because a respect for the peace and safety of the community, and already injured rights of individuals, forbids a compulsory liberation of these unfortunate creatures, shall we unnecessarily refine upon this gloomy system of bondage, and prevent the owner of a slave from manumitting him, at the only probable period, when the warm feelings of benevolence, and the gentle workings of commiseration dispose him to the generous deed? - Sir, the natural character of Maryland is sufficiently sullied, and dishonoured, by barely tolerating slavery: but when it is found, that your laws give every possible encouragement to its continuance to the latest generation, and are ingenious to prevent even its flow and gradual decline, how is the die of the imputation deepened? - It may even be thought, that our late glorious struggle for liberty, did not originate in principle, but took its rifle from popular caprice, the rage of faction, or the intemperance of party. Let it be remembered, mr. Speaker, that, even in the days of feudal barbarity - when the minds of men were un-expanded by that liberality of sentiment, which springs from civilization and the refinement - such was the antipathy, in England, against private bondage, that, so far from being studious to stop the progress of emancipation, the courts of law (aided by legislative connivance) were inventive to liberate, by construction. If, for example, a man brought an action against his villain, it was presumed, that he designed to manumit him; and, although perhaps this presumption was, in contrary to the fact, yet, upon this ground alone, were bondmen adjudged to be free.
Sir, - I sincerely wish, it were in my power, to impart my feelings, upon this subject, to those who hear me - they would then acknowledge, that, while the owner was protected in the property of his slave, he might at the same time be allowed to relinquish that property to the unhappy subject, whenever he should be so inclined. They would then feel, that denying this privilege was repugnant to every principle of humanity - an everlasting stigma on our government - an act of unequalled barbarity - without a colour of policy, or a pretext of necessity, to justify it.
Sir, let gentlemen put it home to themselves, that after providence has crowned our exertions, in the cause of general freedom, with success, and led us on to independence through a myriad of dangers and in defiance of obstacles crowding thick upon each other, we should not so soon forget the principles upon which we fled to arms, and lose all sense of that interposition of heaven, by which alone we could have been saved, from the grasp of arbitrary power. We may talk of liberty in our public councils; and fancy, that we feel a reverence for her dictates - we may declaim, with all the vehemence of animated rhetoric, against oppression, and flatter ourselves, that we detest the ugly monster, but so long as we continue to cherish the poisonous weed of partial slavery among us, the world will doubt our sincerity. In the name of heaven, with what face can we call ourselves the friends of equal freedom and the inherent rights of our species, when we wantonly pass laws inimical to each - when we reject every opportunity of destroying, by silent, imperceptible degrees, the horrid fabric, of individual bondage, reared by the mercenary hands of those, from whom the sacred flame of liberty received no devotion?
Sir, it is pitiable to reflect, to what wild inconsistencies, to what opposite extreme we are hurried, by the frailty of our nature. Long have I been convinced, that no generous sentiment of which the human heart is capable, no elevated passion of the soul that dignifies mankind, can obtain an uniform and perfect dominion - to day we may be aroused as one man, by a wonderful and unaccountable sympathy, against the lawless invader of the rights of his fellow-creatures: to-morrow we may be guilty of the same oppression, which we reprobated and refilled in another. It is, mr. Speaker, because the complexion of these devoted victims is not quite so delicate as ours - is it, because their untutored minds (humbled and debased by the hereditary yoke) appear less active and capacious than our own - or, is it, because we have been so habituated to their situation, as to become callous to the horrors of it - that we are determined, whether politic or not, to keep them, till time shall be no more, on a level with the brute? For "nothing" says Montesquieu, "so much assimilates a man to a brute, as living among freemen, himself a slave."
Call not Maryland a land of liberty - do not pretend, that she has chosen this country as an asylum - that here she has erected her temple, and consecrated her shrine - when here also her unhallowed enemy holds his hellish pandemonium, and rulers of-cy. I would as soon believe the incoherent tale of a school boy, who should tell me, he had been frightened by a ghost, as that the grant of this permission ought in any degree to alarm us. Are we apprehensive, that these men will become more dangerous, by becoming freemen? Are we alarmed, lest, by being admitted to the enjoyment of civil rights, they will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the rights of others? Strange, unaccountable paradox! How much more rational would it be, to argue, that the natural enemy of the privileges of a freeman, is he who is robbed of them himself! In him the foul dæmon of jealousy converts the sense of his own debasement, into a rancourous hatred for the more auspicious fate of others - while from him, whom you have raised from the degrading situation of a slave, - whom you have restored to that rank, in the order of the universe, which the malignity of his fortune prevented him attaining before, - from such a man (unless his foul be ten thousand times blacker than his complexion) you may reasonably hope for all the happy effects of the warmest gratitude and love.
Sir, let us not limit our views to the short period of a life in being; let us extend them along the continuous line of endless generations yet to come - How will the millions, that now teem in the womb of futurity, and whom your present laws would doom to the curse of perpetual bondage, feel the inspiration of gratitude, to those, whose sacred love of liberty shall have opened the door, to their admission within the pale of freedom? Dishonorable to the species is the idea, that they would ever prove injurious to out interests - released from the shackles of slavery, by the justice of government and the bounty of individuals - the want of fidelity and attachment, would be next to impossible.

Sir, when we talk of policy, it would be well for us to reflect, whether pride is not at the bottom of it; whether we do no feel our vanity and self-consequence wounded at the idea of a dusky African participating equally with ourselves, in the rights of human nature, and rising to a level with us, from the lowest point of degradation. Prejudices of this kind, sir, are often so powerful, as to persuade us, that whatever countervails them, is the extremity of folly, and that the peculiar path of wisdom, is that which leads to their gratification - but it is for us, to reflect, that whatever the complexion, however ignoble the ancestry, or uncultivated the mind, one universal father gave being to them and us; and, with that being, conferred the unalienable rights of the species. But I have heard it argued, that if you permit a master to manumit his slaves by his last will and testament, as soon as they discover he has done so, they will destroy him, to prevent a revocation - never was a weaker defence attempted, to justify the severity of persecution - never did a bigoted inquisition condemn an heretic to torture and to death, upon grounds less adequate to justify the horrid sentence.
Sir, is it not obvious, that the argument applies equally against all devises whatsoever, for any person's benefit. For, if an advantageous bequest is made, even to a white man, has he not the same temptation, to cut short the life of his benefactor, to secure and accelerate the enjoyment of the benefit?
As the universality of this argument renders it completely nugatory, so is its cruelty palpable, by its being more applicable to other instances, to which it has never been applied at all, than to the case under consideration.

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I am one of that unfortunate race of men, who are distinguished from the rest of the human species, by a black skin and woolly hair - disadvantages of very little moment in themselves, but which prove to us a source of the greatest misery, because there are men, who will not be persuaded, that it is possible for a human soul to be lodged within a sable body. The West Indian planters could not, if they thought us men, so wantonly spill our blood; nor could the natives of this land of liberty, deeming us of the same species with themselves, submit to be instrumental in enslaving us, or think of us proper subjects of a forbid commerce. Yet, strong as the prejudices against us are, it will not, I hope, on this side of the Atlantic, be considered as a crime, for a poor african not to confess himself a being of an inferior order to those, who happen to be of a different colour from himself; or be thought very presumptuous, in one who is but a negro, to offer to the happy subjects of this free government, some reflexions upon the wretched condition of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, think worse of my brethren, for being discontented with so hard a lot as that of slavery; nor disown me for their fellow creature, merely because I deeply feel the unmerited sufferings, which my countrymen endure.

It is neither the vanity of being an author, nor a sudden and capricious gull of humanity, which has prompted the present design. It has been long conceived, and long been the principal subject of my thoughts. Ever since an indulgent matter rewarded my youthful services with freedom, and supplied me at a very early age with the means of acquiring knowledge, I have laboured to understand the true principles, on which the liberties of mankind are founded, and to possess myself of the language of this country, in order to plead the cause of those who were once my fellow slaves, and if possible to make my freedom, in some degree, the instrument of their deliverance.

The first thing then, which seems necessary, in order to remove those prejudices, which are so unjustly entertained against us, is to prove that we are men - a truth which is difficult of proof, only because it is difficult to imagine, by what arguments it can be combated. Can it be contended, that a difference of colour alone can constitute a difference of species? - if not, in what single circumstance are we different from the rest of mankind? what variety is there in our organization? what inferiority of art in the fashioning of our bodies? what imperfection in the faculties of our minds? - Has not a negro eyes? has not a negro hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? - fed with the same food; hurt with the same weapons; subject to the same diseases; gated, by the memory of their wrongs, to the commission of every crime - shew us, I say, (and the demonstration, if it be possible, cannot be difficult) that a greater proportion of these, than of white men, have fallen under the animadversion of justice, and have been sacrificed to your laws. Though avarice may slander and insult our misery, and though the poets heighten the horror of their fables, by representing us as masters of vice - the fact is, that, if treated like other men, and admitted to a participation of their rights, we should differ from them in nothing, perhaps, but in our possessing strong passions, nicer sensibility, and more enthusiastic virtue.

Before so harsh a decision was pronounced upon our nature, we might have expected - if sad experience had not taught us, to expect nothing but injustice from our adversaries - that some pains would have to be taken, to ascertain, what our nature is; and that we should have been considered, as we are found in our native woods, and not as we now are - altered and perverted by an inhuman political institution. But, instead of this, we are examined, not by philosophers, but by interested traders: not as nature formed us, but as man has depraved us - and from such an enquiry, prosecuted under such circumstances, the perverseness of our dispositions is said to be established. Cruel that you are! you make us slaves; you implant in our minds all the vices, which are, in some degree, inseparable from that condition; and you then impiously impute to nature, and to God, the origin of those vices, to which you alone have given birth; and punish in us the crimes, of which you are yourselves the authors.

The condition of slavery is in nothing more deplorable, than in its being so unfavourable to the practice of every virtue. The surest foundation of virtue, is the love of our fellow creatures; and that affection takes its birth, in the social relations of men to one another. But to a slave these are all denied. He never pays or receives the grateful duties of a son - he never knows or experiences the fond solitude of a father - that tender names of husband, of brother, and of friend, are to him unknown. He has no country to defend and bleed for - he can relieve no sufferings - for he looks around in vain, to find a being more wretched than himself. He can indulge no generous sentiment - for, he sees himself every hour treated with contempt and ridicule, and distinguished from irrational brutes, by nothing, but the severity of punishment. Would it be surprising, if a slave, labouring under all these disadvantages - oppressed, insulted, scorned, and trampled on - should come at last to despise himself - to believe the calumnies of his oppressors - and to persuade himself, that it would be against his nature, to cherish any honourable sentiment, or to attempt any virtuous action? Before you boast of your superiority over us, place some of your own colour (if you have the heart to do it) in the same situation with us; and see, whether they have such innate virtue, and such unconquerable vigour of mind, as to be capable of surmounting such multiplied difficulties, and of keeping their minds free from the infection of every vice, even under the oppressive yoke of such a servitude.

But, not satisfied with denying us that indulgence, to which the misery of our condition gives us so just a claim, our enemies have laid down other and stricter rules of morality, to judge our actions by, that those by which the conduct of all other men is tried. Habits, which in all human beings, except ourselves, are thought innocent, are, in us, deemed criminal - and actions, which are even laudable in white men, become enormous crimes in negroes. In proportion to our weakness, the strictness of censure is increased upon us; and as resources are withheld from us, our duties are multiplied. The terror of punishment is perpetually before our eyes; but we know not, how to avert it, what rules to act by, or what guides to follow. We have written laws, indeed, composed in a language we do not understand, and never promulgated: but what avail written laws, when the supreme law, with us, is the capricious will of our overseers? To obey the dictates of our own hearts, and to yield to the strong propensities of nature, is often to incur severe punishment; and by emulating examples, which we find applauded and revered among Europeans, we risk inflaming the wildest wrath of our inhuman tyrants.

To judge of the truth of these assertions, consult even those milder and subordinate rules for our conduct, the various codes of your West India laws - those laws, which allow us to be men, where they consider us as victims of their vengeance, but treat us only like a species of living property, as often as we are to be the objects of their protection - those laws, by which (it may be truly said) that we are bound to suffer, and be miserable, under pain and death. To resent an injury, received from a white man, though of the lowest rank, and to dare to strike him, though upon the strongest and grossest provocation, is an enormous crime. To attempt an escape from the cruelties exercise over us, by flight, is punished with mutilation, and sometimes with death. To take arms against matters, whose cruelty no submission can mitigate, no patience exhaust. and from whom no other means of deliverance are left, is the most atrocious of all crimes; and is punished by a gradual death, lengthened out by torments, so exquisite, that none, but those who have been long familiarized, with West Indian barbarity, can hear the bare recital of them without horror. And yet I learn from writers, whom the Europeans hold in the highest esteem, that treason is a crime, which cannot be committed by a slave against his master; that a slave stands in no civil relation towards his master, and owes him no allegiance; that master and slave are in a state of war; and if the slave take up arms for his deliverance, he acts not only justifiably, but in obedience to a natural duty, the duty of self-preservation. I read in authors, whom I find venerated by our oppressors, that to deliver one's self and one's countrymen from tyranny, is an act of the sublimest heroism. I hear Europeans exalted, as the martyrs of public liberty, the faviours of their country, and the deliverers of mankind - I see their memories honoured with statues, and their names immortalized in poetry - and yet when a generous negro is animated by the same passion, which ennobled them - when he feels the wrongs of his countrymen as deeply, and attempts to revenge them as boldly - I see him treated by those same Europeans, as the most execrable of mankind, and led out, amidst curves and insults, to undergo a painful, gradual, and ignominious death: and thus the same Briton, who applauds his own ancestors, for attempting to throw off the easy yoke, imposed on them by the Romans, punishes us, as detested parricides, for seeking to get free from the cruellest of all tyrannies, and yielding to the irresistible eloquence of an African Galgacus or Boadicea.

Are then the reason and the morality, for which Europeans so highly value themselves, of a nature so variable and fluctuating, as to change with the complexion of those, to whom they are applied? - Do the rights of nature cease to be such, when negro is to enjoy them? - Or does patriotism, in the heart of an African, rankle into treason?
A free negro.

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To the PRINTER of the AMERICAN MUSEUM.
SIR,
YOU will oblige some of your readers, by inserting the opinion of the critical reviewers, of London, on dr. Smith's essay, on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure among mankind, and at the same time giving the following remarks a place in your Museum. A.B

Reviewers' opinion.
AT different times, we have glanced at this subject, and have felt great embarrassment, not only from its real difficulty, but from the danger of improper and undeserved imputations. Yet we see not that, with a liberal and candid mind, the danger can be considerable. The Copernican system has advanced in reputation, and is at last established, notwithstanding the opposition which the Mosaic history affords; and the best divines allow, that the Scriptures were certainly not designed to teach us a system of philosophy. In the population of the world, this argument has additional force. Moses relates the history of one family, and one race, evidently with a design of establishing the genealogy of the Jews, and, eventually, that of Christ. The language there employed, 'of the whole world,' is the same with that used in the other parts of Scripture, where a limited portion is only meant; and the whole race of mankind is that race which is to form the peculiarly favored nation of God. If, indeed, this view of the question was not perfectly clear, the allusions of different parts of Scripture might be adduced. There were giants, says Moses, on the earth in those days; and another race is evidently alluded to, when he speaks of the sons of God going into the daughters of men. If this then was the case previous to the deluge, and only hinted at incidentally, we may well suppose that it may be the case in a subsequent period, though not particularly pointed out; and if with some authors, we suppose the deluge partial, it will appear more decisive. It is enough for our purpose, however, to observe, that in examining this question, we mean not willfully to oppose the inspired writers; but considering it as a philosophical one, we shall give the arguments which arise from a careful view of the different facts.

After this apology, we may venture to say that sr. Smith's essay, in which he endeavors to show that the human race sprung from one pair, is extremely vague and inaccurate; that it is far from proving the principle which he wishes to establish. It is, in other respects, exceptionable; for, to an unreasonable diffuseness, it adds no little confusion. A philosopher, in discussing this subject, would have examined the various figures and complexions of mankind. He would have distinguished what was decidedly the effects of climate and habit; for much variety is owing to these causes, from what is more permanent, and con frequently ought to be the subject of this investigation. Instead of pursuing this method, he takes at one view all the varieties, and when has proved some of these to be the effects of heat or cold, or different customs, he thinks that has has, with equal certainty, demonstrated the rest to be of the same kind. So loose and inclusive in his reasoning, that he has never inquired what really constitutes a different species: in botany it is preserving the general and essential characters in changes of situation, and losing, in time, the accidental differences, which climate and culture have produced. In animals, where the distinction ought to have begun, it has been neglected. If the production of a fertile offspring be the criterion of the sameness of the species, men are undoubtedly the same species. But this distinction is found to be fallacious, particularly in domesticated animals; and, if carefully examined, we shall see that in zoology, the species, are not, in reality, ascertained with accuracy. We must then, at last, refer to the botanical distinction.

Another cause of inaccuracy, in our author, is a very indefinite use of terms. We have 'dark, swarthy, and black,' used with little discrimination. There are three colors which distinguish three races of men: the fair sanguine European; the shining jetty Negro, and the duller copper-colored American. To these all the varieties must be referred; and if an author can prove that climate will bring an unmixed race of Americans in Europe to a fair complexion, or in Africa to the jetty black, he will have, in one part, obtained his end. He must otherwise fail. If, indeed, he proves so much, more remains behind. The face of the African and American differ as much as their color; and both differ from the German of Tacitus, whom we choose as our standard of the European, because of the similarity in the receptive states of civilization. He will not, even then, have finished his work. The Huns, the Tartars, and the Greeks, differ still more from each other, What climate gives the two former their peculiarity? What manners produce such a striking difference on the two latter? The Tartars, whom we have put between, by design, have inhabited climates as those of the Huns, and as warm as those of the Greeks; yet they have always differed. As we have pointed out what doctor Smith should have done, let us now see what he has done.

In the beginning he neglects medical differences: we suppose he means anatomical ones; for he is very diffuse on the subject of the bile, which is fortunately of great service to him, because it is yellow, and because it may become black. If, however, he had proceeded to anatomical differences, he would have found the membrane immediately under the scarfskin, black in the negro; he would have found it tawny when he was just born, and daily grow blacker before the bile had any color. He would have found it in the American, of a copper colour; and, in the European, of a reddish white. He would have found an original difference in the shape of
the skull and legs; a difference in the treatment of diseases, and the effects of medicines.

He alleges, with justice, that the skin is changed, though the bile be not affected; and it is certainly true, that heat of climate blackens the hair, without affecting the constitution in
general. It blackens also the complexion; agreed: but the swarthy Spaniard is a distant in color from the Negro, though perhaps of Moorish race, as the Highlander; for a dirty brown is extremely distant from a jetty black. Our author's whole reasoning proves no more. The curly
hair is a very important difference. If our author had examined it, he would have found it proceed from the tortuosity of the pores through which
it proceeds. He has struggled with this difficulty as much as the hair seems to do for its growth. The Malays, in hot climates, have curly hair; and the blacks, in temperate ones, lose the distinction. This is true, in some measure; but the most curly hair of the Malay is much straiter than the longest hair of the Negro. Our Readers will smile when dr. Smith, after much labour, comes to tell us, that, in consequence of a continuation for some ages in a temperate climate, the
Negro has actually had a queue from five to six inches long. The Malay, in a hotter climate than this third race of Negroes in America, have, in no instance, where it is allowed to grow, hair so short.
The effects of heat and cold, on the forms of the bodies, is explained with still less success. In the 48th degree of latitude, we are assured, that the posterity of Chinese families have become perfect Tartars. We know that, in the West India islands, the fourth race from a Negro woman is almost an European; and from the same cause. Weak must be the argument that wants such support. We cannot give a better specimen of our author's reasoning than the following.

" The principal peculiarities that may require a farther illustration are the smallness of the nose, and depression of the middle of the face ; the prominence of the forehead, and the extreme weakness of the eyes.
" The middle of the face is that part which is most exposed to the cold, and consequently suffers most from its power of contraction. It first meets the wind, and it is farthest removed from the heat of warmth in the head. But a circumstance of equal, or, perhaps, of greater importance on this subject, is that the inhabitants of frozen climates naturally drawing their breath more through the nose than through the mouth, thereby direct the greatest impulse of the air on that feature, and the parts adjacent. Such a continual stream of air augments the cold, and by increasing the contraction of the parts, restrains the freedom of their growth.
" Hence, likewise, will arise an easy solution of the next peculiarity, the prominence of the forehead. The superior warmth and force of life in the brain that fills the upper part of the head, will naturally increase its size, and make it overhang the contracted parts below."

Yet, on this subject, his foundation is secure, for he is only explaining the differences of, confessedly, the same race in different climates. It is, however, impossible to accumulate more false physiology, or more erroneous facts, in a familiar space. If he looks at the Laplanders and the Esquimaux, the description will be found not to be just. The theory then must of course be erroneous.

Another cause of apparent change, and a very important one. if we look at its influence, is expression, in consequence of the state of society.
" Every object that impresses the senses, and every emotion that rises in the mind, affects the features of the face the index of our feelings, and contributes to form the infinitely various countenance of man. Paucity of ideas creates a vacant and unmeaning aspect. Agreeable and cultivated scenes compose the features, and render them regular and gay. Wild, and deformed, and solitary forests tend to impress on the countenance, an image of their own rudeness. Great varieties are created by diet and modes of living. The delicacies of refined life give a soft and elegant form to the features. Hard fare, and constant exposure to the injuries of the weather, render them coarse and uncouth. The infinite attentions of polished society give variety and expression to the face. The want of interesting emotions leaving its muscles lax and unexerted, they are suffered to distend themselves to a larger and grosser size, and acquire a soft unvarying swell that is not distinctly marked by an idea. A general standard of beauty has its effect in forming the human countenance and figure. Every passion and mode of thinking has its peculiar expression - And all the preceding characters have again many variations according to their degrees of strength, according to their combinations with other principles, and according to the peculiarities of constitution or of climate, that form the ground on which the different impressions are received."

This is, in general, extremely just; but expression neither flattens the nose, raises the forehead, or bends the legs; much less does it give a variety to the more internal conformations in which the Negro differs from the European. The Native American approaches nearer to us than the Negro; yet let us attend to dr. Smith with all the impressions of a preconceived hypothesis on this mind. He is describing an Indian youth at the college.
" There is an obvious difference between him and his fellow-students in the largeness of the mouth, and thickness of the lips, in the elevation of the cheek, in the darkness of the complexion, and the contour of the face. But these differences are sensibly diminishing. They seem the faster to diminish in proportion as he loses that vacancy of eye, and that lugubrious wildness of countenance peculiar to the savage state, and acquires the agreeable expression of civil life. The expression of the eye, and the softening of the features to civilized emotions and ideas, seems to have removed more than half the difference between him and us. His colour, though it is much lighter than the complexion of the native savage, as is evident from the stain of blushing, that, on a near inspection, is instantly discernible, still forms the principle distinction. There is less difference between his features and those of his fellow-students, than we often see between persons in civilized society. After a careful attention to each particular feature, and comparison of it with correspondent feature in us, I am now able to discover but little difference. And yet there is an obvious difference in the whole countenance."

This struggle between facts and theory is violent; but let us extract, in a few words, the truth. The features remain, the difference is in expression. Let us mention another fact: where the likeness does not depend on the colour and the form of the eye, the resemblance between the features of children and their parents is most obvious when asleep; and, in some instances, it has appeared striking in the dead body, though observable in life. Frequent intercourse will give a general similarity: this fact our author has made the most of; but he allows that it neither changes the shape of the nose or lips in an African; and we can allow, in turn, that it changes the expression so much, that a nose and lips, till they examined, will almost seem changed.

The effects of civilization, and the melioration, if the world may be allowed, of the species, by introducing into the South, the fairer and more sanguine daughters of the North, our author has well explained. He has shown too, which sufficient accuracy, the effects of hard living, severe treatment, filth, and exposure to the weather. We can only say, that these have produced little effect on his argument; for the same race, in better situations, have recovered their former distinguishing marks.

Dr. Smith afterwards traces the different objections to his system, and allows, that in the same parallels of latitude the complexion is different. If we examine the globe, we shall find a very considerable diversity in countries where the heat and driness are nearly the same. Let us take the 20th degree of latitude, which is within the tropic of Cancer, and passes directly through the kingdom of the Negroes. It cuts Nubia, where the inhabitants are not black; Arabia almost in its wildest part: but Arabians are only swarthy, and, when transported to more temperate climes, are almost fair. It divides the Decan, where those best defended from the heat are only brown, and the poorer sort of darkish hue, very different from black; passes through Siam and China; the kingdom of Mexico; and the south western end of Cuba. In the vast extent, we meet often with as great heat, nearly as much drought, but with a race of beings as dissimilar as can be supposed. In the more southern regions, we meet with greater heat and less moisture, but people differing greatly from the Negros, whose peculiarity is attributed to these causes alone. It is contended, that in Borneo we meet with a race of Negros. If this be true, we admit the whole system. From all we have heard, from all we have seen or read, the native inhabitants are very different. Their skin is, indeed, a shining olive; but their noses are not flat, their forehead are not raised, and their lips often thin. The Aborigines must not be confounded with the Malays on the coast, who are pf a blacker hue, though far distant from the Negro race.

Dr. Smith concluded with some remarks and strictures on that part of lord Kaims's 'Sketches of the Histo- of Man,' where he contends that there is more than one race. The charge of infidelity is pretty liberally scattered. Lord Kaims's religious sentiments are not now at issue, and we think too, that he has defended this argument weekly. Our author, on the other hand, is not always candid or just in his strictures.

Dr. Smith may, in his turn, ask how many species of men there are? We dare not answer this question; for our knowledge is not yet sufficiently extensive. From the proposed expedition to explore the inland parts of Africa, an expedition formerly thought of and almost on the point of being carried into the execution, we may expect much information on this subject. At present, we can perceive only, with some clearness the European of Tacitus, the Negro, the Hun, and the American. The Chinese, the Hindoo, or the Malay, may have descended from the stock of Europeans, and may have produced the Americans: we speak only of what is pretty clearly defined; though, if the latter suggestions be admitted, the last must be excluded from the rank of a different species. We have not mentioned the Albinoes, who are evidently a degenerated race: we have not made any remarks on the supposed change of colour in the Jews in Abyssinia, because it is not yet ascertained.

The English editor has added notes to this essay, which shew him to be possessed of no inconsiderable knowledge. He agrees, however, almost entirely with dr. Smith, whose opinions he sometimes explains, and often endeavors to confirm.

We must not leave this enquiry, without remarking, that whatever conclusion we form of the distinct species, it ought not to affect the work of humanity on securing a better treatment to the Negros. If they are found to be of a different species, they are still men; and if it appears that our own rank in the creation is the superior one, it should only suggest that mercy and compassion which we hope for from beings infinitely superior to ourselves.

At any rate, a work of benevolence and importance ought not, in the slightest degree, to be influenced by a speculative question - by a question which it is possible will never be decided.

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I Have read the observations of two sets of the reviewers in England on dr. Smith's essay, on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure among mankind. The monthly reviewers speak of that essay with approbation. The critical reviewers on the other hand, who generally make it a point, if possible, to differ from the monthly, condemn the structure, the philosophy, and the stile of the essay. The stile they say is diffusive, the philosophy not sufficiently supported by facts, or well enough reasoned; and the structure not scientific. They have, however, done the essay, short as it is, the honour of a very long and laboured criticism, and have undertaken to reason on the opposite side of the question, which, I make no doubt, will, with every intelligent person, who shall carefully read both, be much in favour of the doctor's performance. The gentleman with whom these reviewers have entrusted the fabricating of this criticism is evidently an anatomist, and probably not much more. After apologizing to religion, for attacking the essay, they proceed to blame the structure of it. They say that "a philosopher would have examined the various figures and complexions of mankind," as if this examination did not run through the whole essay. But they add, "he should have distinguished what was decidedly the effect of climate and habit, from what is more permanent" - that is, he should have drawn the picture of a man entirely free from the modifications of every climate, and upon whom all climates act to produce their respective changes. With their leave, that is an absurdity; no man exists free from the modifying influence of some climate - and therefore the picture of such a man cannot be drawn. It is impossible to say, at this distance of time, what the first man was; but we have a general idea of the animal man sufficient for our purpose in this discussion, without the anatomical exactness which they require; and which, in this case is not attainable. They seem to require it only because it is impossible; that thereby the question may never be capable of a decision. I defy any anatomist, and even a reviewing anatomist, to tell the exact length of the nerves, the precise stain of the membrane immediately below the scarf skin, and other particulars of a similar kind that compose the general idea of the human species: or which compose that body upon which all accidental, climatical, or other changes are impressed. The dr. therefore was perfectly right in not attempting what is in its nature impossible, or at least beyond the present measure of human knowledge.

They proceed, so loose and inconclusive is his reasoning that he has never enquired what really constitutes a different species. And then they tell us how the botanists have defined a species, and what attempts have been made to define a species among animals. They acknowledge that the true distinction of a species among animals has never been given, altho' they blame the writer of the essay for not doing it, and what is more, for not making it the foundation of all his following reasoning. Such a definition would necessarily have been attended with so much uncertainty, that no precise or certain philosophy should have been build upon it. In this instance at least the doctor has discovered himself to be a better philosopher than his reviewers. They presume, after struggling with the difficulty of species, and confessing that "in zoölogy, that species are not in reality ascertained with accuracy" to say that he ought to have adopted the botanical definition of a distinct species. "It is, say they, preserving the general and essential characters in changes of situation, and losing in time the accidental differences which climate and culture have produced." Now this definition requires us to ascertain what are the general and essential characters of the human species. These are not perfectly agreed upon by anatomists, nor reviewers themselves - but whenever they will be good enough to agree, and point them out, i will undertake to show from the essay, to any fair and philosophic reasoner, that the general and essential characters of human nature are preserved in all changes of situation, and that it loses, in time, accidental differences which climate and society have produced. "Another cause of inaccuracy, say them, is a very indefinite use of terms. We have dark, swarthy, and black, used with little discrimination." This is palpable misrepresentation - where, in the whole essay do they find black confounded with the dark and swarthy? on the other hand, if they were not so much biassed by an opposite system as to lose both attention and candour, they would have found the gradation of colour from the fair and sanguine, marked by dark, swarthy, olive, copper, the Abissinian black, and the jet black of Guinea.

But let the reader examine their criticism, in that part of it where they mention the different complexions under the 20th degree latitude, and then judge who is guilty of an indefinite use of terms. This degree, they say, "cuts Arabia almost in its widest part; but the Arabians are only swarthy?" The good gentlemen are either ignorant, or dishonest. The northern Arabians are indeed swarthy, as dr. Smith evidently understands that term. But the southern Arabians are as black as the Abissinians; that is, they are characterised by the intermediate grade of colour, between the copper, and the jet black, But they, with obvious duplicity, or want of information, range the whole country under one colour. They proceed to say, "it divides the Decan, where those best defended from the heat are only brown, and the poorer fort, of a darkish hue, very different from black. What do they mean by a brown, and a darkish, hue? The latter term is certainly much more indefinite than any in the essay. Besides, in any way in which the terms can be understood, their remark is totally false; and, if it does not proceed from great dishonourable cause. The most intelligent travellers inform is, that the poorer class of people are as lack as the Nubians, and much darker than our North American Indians - and I have seen six of them in this country, whose colour is verified these relations. They add - which, however, is not immediately connected with the indefinite use of terms, but is with the general argument -"It is contended that, in Borneo, we meet with a race of Negroes - If this be true, we admit the whole system." Then I say that whole system ought to be admitted; for we have the best evidence that the Borneans are just such as dr. Smith has described them - Not so black as the inhabitants of Guinea, but fully as black as those of Nubia; and their hair is short and curled. But, "the Aborigines, they say, must not be confounded with the Malays on the coast, who are of a blacker hue." Very right, and agreeable to the principles of the essay. Islanders are never so dark as continentals, in the same latitude; nor the inhabitants of mountains, so dark those of low lands. The centre of Borneo is a high mountainous country; and if all the inhabitants of the island would be less highly coloured than the low-landers.

They mention the striking differences that exist between the Huns, that Tartars, and the Greeks; and ask, "what climate gives the two former their peculiarity? What manners produce such a striking difference on the two latter?" Such questions might be asked a thousand times, after they had been as often solved, to prejudiced or careless readers. Those who read the essay with attention and discernment, will find these questions resolved, and a satisfactory reply made, to several of their remarks, in this part of their criticisms.
After pointing out "what dr. Smith should have done, they come to shew what he has done." They complain of his diffuseness on the subject of the bile, because it was "fortunately of great service to him:" and then say, "if however, he had proceeded to anatomical differences, he would have found the membrane, immediately under the scarf skin, black in the Negro; he would have found it tawny, when he was just born, and daily, grow blacker, before the bile had any colour, He would have found it in the America, of a copper colour, and in the European, of a reddish white." Be it so - And yet this fact, if it be a fact, does not militate against the general principles of the essay. The original causes of colour may be such as dr. Smith has pointed out, and, at least, plausibly established. He had proved at the same time, nearly to demonstration, that the causes which affect colour, produce such radical changes in the constitution as are communicated to offspring. If they found find the cellular membrane of an Indian, or a Negro, somewhat discoloured at the birth, they will find that of a brunette family proportionably discoloured, without militating against the identity of human race, or the principles of which complexion has been accounted for. But to minds, like theirs, already prepossessed in favour of a peculiar opinion, the slightest appearances afford an argument, which they are seldom pains to examine with accuracy, because they do not with to examine it. They say, that in Tartars and Negroes, "the shape of the skull and legs is different" from the shape of the same members in the whites. - Agreed - it is so - tho' not in the degree which they seem to imagine. And does not the essay acknowledge it? Does it not profess to account for the phenomenon, by throwing that the properties of parents are, in a degree, always transmitted to their children? Is not a consumptive habit transmitted? Will not a lady who has injured her own health, of shape, by too tight lacing, often shew the effects of it in her child? And why may not the head, in time, be affected, as well as the lungs, or the bowels? They proceed with equal wisdom to say, "the curly hair is very important difference. If our author had examined, he would have found it to proceed from the tortuosity of the pores, through which it proceeds." If they had examined, would they have found all curled hair to rise out of tortuous pores? If so, might not the tortuosity of the pores, rather proceed from the tortuosity of the hair, or the causes that produce it? Will the curvature of the root of the necessarily produce the curvature of that part that is out of the skin? Will tortuous pores, more than strait ones, necessarily check its growth, and render it short and sparse? What becomes of the tortuosity of the pores in the Negroes of this country whole hair is growing longer, thicker, and straiter? Oh! most excellent philosophers! The good gentlemen, however, are pleased to smile only at the doctor's Negro queue of six inches, which they say has been the growth of some ages, instead of three generations.

"The Malays, they add, in a hotter climate than this third race of Negroes in America, have, in no instance, where it is allowed to grow, hair so short." That is true, because the climate of Afra in general tends to long hair, as that of Africa does to short and curled hair. In the Asiatic islands, therefore, although they lie beneath the equator, the hair of a Malay will never become so short as that of a negro on the continent of Africa. But that it becomes shorter in the equatorial regions, even of Asia, than in the peninsulas of Arabia, and the two Indias, is a striking verification of the principles of dr. Smith's essay. The hair of the Negroes who have been removed to America, although it is growing longer, and straiter, yet lengthens slowly, however, because, as the essay justly observes, the melioration is always much less rapid, than the deterioration of the human species. They have, in the next place, done dr. Smith the honour to make two pretty long quotations from him - one in their smiling humour, and the other in a more grave one. He has reason to be very much obliged to them, because every judicious reader can compare his stile and manner with theirs. After the former quotation, indeed, notwithstanding the extreme good humour in which they made it, they acknowledge, that, "on this subject, his foundation is secure." - But they add, "it is, however, impossible to accumulate more false physiology, or more erroneous facts, in similar space. If he looks at the Laplanders and the Esquimaux, the description will be found not to just." Of the Esquimaux, at least, we in America can judge better than they: and dr. Smith need be under no apprehension of not being able to prove, by the most indubitable facts, that the description he has given of them is characteristic and just. After the second quotation, they acknowledge the propriety of his reflexions; but object to them, "that they are not sufficient to account for some phenomena," which he never intended to account for by them.

They then proceed to another quotation for which he ought to be equally obliged to them, as for the former. But let the well informed reader compare his remarks with theirs - I mean the remarks in the essay, which follow that quotation, and he will be at no loss in favour of which he ought to determine.

They have traced a parallel of latitude, in the 20th degree, round the globe, and have informed us, that a great variety of complexions exist under the same line. They ought, also, to have informed us, that the author of the essay has enumerated all those verities, and endeavoured to account for them; and on the justness, and the found philosophy of that account, I believe he may, with every candid and enlightened reader, risk his literary reputation.

They hope for considerable support to their opinion, from expeditions that are shortly to be undertaken into the heart of Africa. So may the Cartesians refute the Newtonian philosophy, by the expectation of future phenomena. But, even at present, that say "we can perceive with some clearness" that following distinct species of men - "the European of Tacitus, the Negro, the Hun, and the American." In a former part of their strictures, they had made the Hun clearly distinct from the Tartar. But that may have been only a small oversight - they continue - "the Chinese, the Hindoo, of the Malay, may have descended from the flock of Europeans, and may have produced the Americans." - This is a concession I did not expect. If they may have produced they American, both the tawny North-American, and the black Toupinambo of South-America, why not the blacker Negro of Africa? If they may have produced that Malay of Borneo with his curled hair and tortuous pores, why not the inhabitants of Guinea, or Monomotapa, although the tortuosity be a little greater? From such remarks as these, dr. Smith cannot possibly have any thing to fear; and is the principles of his philosophy are shaken, it must be by a very different kind of arguments. They allow, it the conclusion, that the English editor of dr. Smiths' essay, possess no inconsiderable knowledge, who has added nothing to explain and confirm the doctor's opinions. It is certainly somewhat in favour of the merits of that essay, that it has gone through two editions in Britain, and that it has been thought worthy of the annotations of a philosopher of genius and information.

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The distress which the inhabitants of Guinea experience at the loss of their children, who are stolen from them by the persons employed in the slave trade, is, perhaps, more thoroughly felt than described. But, as it is a subject to which every person has not [attempted], the following is an attempt to represent the anguish of a mother, whose son and daughter were taken from her by a ship's crew belonging to a country where the God of justice and mercy is owned and worshipped.
HELP! oh, help! thou God of christians!
Save a mother from despair -
Cruel white men steal my children;
God of christians! hear my pray'r.

From my arm by force they're rended,
Sailors drag them to the sea;
Yonder ship at anchor riding,
Swift will carry them away.
There my son lies, pale and bleeding;
Fast, with thongs his hands are bound;
See the tyrants, how they scourge him!
See his sides a reeking wound.
See his little sister by him,
Quaking, trembling, how she lies,
Drops of blood her face besprinkle;
Tears of anguish fill her eyes.
Now they tear her brother from her,
Down below the deck he's thrown;
Stiff with beating; through fear silent,
Save a single death-like groan.
Hear the little daughter begging,
"Take me white men for your own;
"Spare, oh spare my darling brother!
"He's my mother's only son.

"See upon the shore she's raving;
"Down she falls upon the sands;
"Now she tears her flesh with madness,
"now she prays with lifted hands.
"I am young, and strong, and hardy;
"He's a sick and feeble boy:
"Take me, whip me, chain me, starve me;
"All my life I'll toil with joy.

"Christians, who's the God ye worship?
"Is he cruel, fierce, or good?
"Does he take delight in mercy,
"Or in spilling human blood?
"Ah! my poor distracted mother!
"Hear her scream upon the shore"
Down the savage captain struck her,
Lifeless, on the vessel's floor.

Up his sails he quickly hoisted,
To the ocean bent his way;
Headlong plung'd the raving mother
From a high rock, in the sea.

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"AH! tell me, little mournful Moor,
"Why still you linger on the shore?
"Haste to your playmates, haste away,
"Nor loiter here with fond delay;
"When mourn unveil'd her radient eye,
"You hail'd me as I wander'd by,
"Returning at th' approach of eve,
"Your meek salute I still receive."

Benign enquirer, thou shalt know,
Why here my lonesome moments flow;
'Tis said, thy countrymen (no more Like rav'ning sharks that haunt the shore)
Return to raise, to bless, to cheer,
And pay compassion's long arrear;
'Tis said the num'rous captive train,
Late bound by the degrading chain,
'Mid smiling skies and western gales,
They come, with festive heart and glee,
Their hands unshackled -- minds as free;
They come, at mercy's great command,
To repossess their native land.

The gales that o'er the ocean stray,
And chace the waves in gentle play;
Methinks they whisper as they fly,
Juellen soon will thine eye;
'Tis this that sooths her little son,
Blends all his wishes into one.
Ah! were I clasp'd in her embrace,
I could forgive her past disgrace;
Forgive the memorable hour,
She fell a prey to tyrant pow'r;
Forgive her lost distracted air,
Her sorrowing voice, her kneeling pray'r.
The suppliant tear that gall'd her cheek,
And last, her agonizing shriek,
Lock'd in her hair, a ruthless hand,
Trail'd her along the flinty strand;
A ruffian train, with clamours rude,
Th' impious spectacle pursu'd;
Still as she mov'd, in accents wild,
She cried aloud, 'my child! my child!'
The lofty bark she now ascends,
With screams of woe, the air she rends',
The vessel less'ning from the shore,

Her piteous wails I heard no more,
Now as I stretch'd my last survey,
Her distant form dissolv'd away. -
That day is past - I cease to mourn -
Succeeding joy shall have its turn.
Beside the hoarse resounding deep,
A pleasing anxious watch I keep.
For when the morning clouds shall break,
And darts of day the darkness streak,
Prechance, along the glitt'ring main,
(Oh! may this hope not throb in vain)
To meet these long-desiring eyes,
Juellen and the sun may rise.

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The sun, declining, pass'd the western hills,
And gentle breezes curl'd the winding rills
The moon in silent majesty arose,
And weary negroes fought for calm repose.
Scorch'd by the burning sun's meridian ray,
All wish'd refreshment from the blaze of day -
O'erwhelm'd with grief, and mad with fell despair,
Forsook the grove. On Afric's burning shore
He'd left his friends his absence to deplore;
His wife, his children, in their native land,
(Subjected to a tyrant's curs'd command)
In poverty and wretchedness retire;
Nor know the friend, the husband, or the fire.
Such sad reflexions never left his breast,
His eyes forgot the balmy sweets of rest;
His tongue forgot to sing the songs of joy,
No more did mirth or love his hours employ;
Far from his little children's much lov'd face,
And doom'd to bear forever slav'ry's chain,
To grieve, to sigh, alas! to live in vain.
O christians! fiends to our unhappy race,
Why do we wear those ensigns of disgrace?
Did nature's God create us to be slaves,
Or is it pride, which God's decree outbraves?
Had he design'd that we should not be free,
Why do we know the sweets of liberty?
He could no more; but mounting on a rock,
Whose shaggy sides o'erhung the silver brook -
Thence tumbling headlong down the steepest side,
He plung'd, determin'd, in the foaming tide.
His mangled carcass floated on the flood,
And stain'd the silver winding stream with blood.

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SOME years ago, Paul Wilmot, a quaker, native of Philadelphia, having settled in Jamaica, retired to a plantation beautifully situated on the declivity of a mountain, near the centre of the island. His family consisted of a wife and three young children. He possessed a number of slaves, whose looks and whole appearance betokened that their servitude was not grievous. Indeed Wilmot was one of those benevolent characters, that consider the wide world as their country, and the whole human race as their brethren. His negroes were distributed into little families. Among them were no dissentions, no jealousies, no thefts, no suicides, no conspiracies: the labours of the day gave place in the evening to the song and the dance; and they retired to rest, with hearts full of gratitude, satisfaction, and consent.

About this time, a negro of Benin, know by the name of John, had instigated the slaves of two rich plantations to revolt, to massacre their masters, and to fly to the mountain. This mountain is in the middle of the island; it is almost inaccessible, and is surrounded with fruitful valleys, which are inhabited by negroes. These, having formerly deserted their services, settled in those valleys, from whence they often made cruel sallies upon their former masters; but now they seldom rise, except to revenge their brethren, who fly to them for refuge, from insupportable persecution. John had been chosen chief of the those negroes, and had issued from the vallies with a considerably body of followers. The alarm was soon spread in the colony; troops were marched to the mountain, and soldiers distributed in those plantations that were defensible.

Wilmot assembled his slaves. "My friends," he said, "there are arms; if I have been a hard master to you, use them against me; but if I have behaved to you as an affectionate father, take them as assist me in defending my wife and my children." The negroes seized upon the arms, and swore they would die in his defence, and in the defence of those that were dear to him. Amongst his slaves there was one, named Francisco, whom a friend of Wilmot's, called Filmer, had found abandoned on the shore of a Spanish colony; he had been barbarously maimed, and one of his legs was newly cut off; a young negro woman was employed in stopping the blood, and in weeping the inefficacy of her cares. She had beside her a child but of a few days old. They belonged to a Spaniard, who had taken this revenge on the negro, for abetting Marianne, the women, in her rejection of some dishonourable proposals which her master had made to her. Filmer purchased them of the Spaniard, who pretended that he had thus treated the negro, because he had surprised him performing the abominable ceremonies of the religion of Benin. Wilmot received them of his friend, who now also lived in his family. Marianne became the favourite of his wife; and Francisco, by his good sense and his knowledge of agriculture, acquired the confidence of Wilmot, and the esteem of everyone.

This man came to his master at the beginning of the night. "The chief of the blacks," says he, "is a native of Benin; he adores the Great Orissa, the Lord of life, and the Father of mankind; he must, therefore, be guided by justice and benevolence: he comes to punish the enemies of the children of Orissa; but you who have consoled them in their misery, he will respect. Let him know by one of our brethren of Benin, how you have treated your slaves, and you will see those warriors fire their muskets in the air, and throw their spears at you feet." His advice was followed, and a messenger dispatched to John.

When a day appeared, it discovered a scene of desolation. Most of the houses within view, were on fire, and the plantations laid waste. In a few places, the cattle were seen feeding in security; but n most, the men and animals were discovered flying across the country, pursued by the exasperated negroes. John had given orders to spare neither man, woman, or child, in the places where his brethren had been harshly treated; in the others, he contended himself with giving liberty to the slaves, but he set fire to every house that was deserted. In his course he proceeded tot the plantation of Wilmot, with a detachment of thirty men.

John, or rather Zimeo, (for the revolted negroes quit the names they have received on their arrival in the colonies,) was a young man , about two and twenty years of age; the statues of Apollo and Antinous do not shew more regular features, or more beautiful proportions. He had an air of grandeur, and seemed born for command. He was still warm from the fight; but, in accosting Wilmot and Filmer, his eyes expressed affection and good-will; the most opposite sentiments shewed themselves by turns in his countenance; he was almost, in the same moment, sorrowful and gay, furious and tender, "I have avenged my race," said he, "and myself; think nit hardly, ye men of peace, of the unfortunate Zimeo; shrink not at the blood with which he is covered; it is that of the inhuman; it is to terrify the wicked that I set no bounds to my vengeance." Then turning to the slaves, "choose," says he, "whether you will follow me to the mountain, or remain with your master." But the negroes falling at the feet of Wilmot, swore, with one voice, that they would rather die than leave him; that he had been father to them, rather than a master; and that their servitude had been a blessing, rather than a bondage.

At this scene Zimeo was affected and agitated with various emotions; lifting up to heaven his eyes, that were ready to overflow, "O Great Orissa!" cred he, "thou who hast formed the heart, look down on these grateful men, these true men, and punish the barbarians that despite us, and treat us as we do not treat the beasts that thou hast made for our use!"

After this exclamation, he gave the hand of friendship to Wilmot and Filmer; "thanks to Orissa," says he, "I have found some whites that I can love! my destiny is in your power, and all the riches I have made myself master of, shall be yours, in return for the favour I have to ask of you."

Wilmot assured him that he would, without recompence, do him any service that was in his power: he invited him to repose himself, and ordered refreshments to be brought for his attendants.

"My friend," said he, "the great Orissa knows that Zimeo is not naturally cruel; but the whites have separated me from all I hold dear; from the wife of Matomba, who was the friend and the guide of my youth; and from the young beauty, who was my heart's whole treasure. Think not hardly, ye men of peace, of the unfortunate Zimeo. You can procure him a ship, and you can conduct home to the place where those are detained, who are necessary to his existence."

At this moment, a young slave, a native of Benin, coming to speak with Wilmot, no sooner cast his eyes on Zimeo, than he gave a shriek, and retired with the greatest precipitation. Zimeo was silent for a moment, when, turning to Wilmot and his friend, "listen, ye men of peace," said he, "to the story of my misfortunes; and acknowledge that I deserve your pity rather than your detestation.

"The great Damel, sovereign of Benin, whole heir I am, sent me, according to the ancient custom of the kingdom, to be educated by the husbandmen of Onebo. I was given in charge to Matomba, the wisest among them, the wisest of men. At the court of my father, his counsel had often prevented evil, and been productive of good. While he was yet young he retired to that village, in which, for ages, the heirs of the empire have been educated. There Matomba enjoyed all the pleasures that a benign sky, a bountiful soil, and a good conscience can bestow. In the village of Onebo, there were no animosities, no idleness, no deceit, no designing priests, no hardness of heart. The young princes had none but the most excellent examples before their eyes. The wife Matomba made me lose those sentiments of pride, and of indolence, that the court and my earlier instructors had inspired me with. I laboured the ground, like my master and his servants: I was instructed in the operations of agriculture, which makes all our riches: I was taught the necessity of being just, a duty of incumbent on all men, that they may be able to educates their children, and cultivate their fields in peace; and I was shewn, that princes, like the labourers of Onebo, must be just towards on another, that they and their subjects may live happy and contended.

"My master had a daughter, the young Ellaroe; I loved her, and soon found that my passion was returned. We had both of us preserved our innocence inviolate; I saw no other in the creation but her; she saw no other but me, and we were happy. Her parents turned this passion to our mutual advantage. I was obedient to every command Matomba, in the hope of making myself worthy of Ellaroe; and the hope of preserving her place in my heart, made every duty delightful to her. My attainments were all due to her, and hers to me. Five years and we thus spent, with increasing attachment, when I demanded permission of my father to espouse Ellaroe. O how I cherished the thought, that she would be my companion on the throne, and my friend in every period of life!

"I was expecting the answer of my father, when two merchants of Portugal arrived at Onebo. They bought, for sale, some implements of husbandry, several articles for domestic use, and some articles of dress, for women and children. We gave them ivory in exchange, and gold dust. They would have purchased slaves, but none, except criminals, are sold in Benin; and there were none of those in the village of Onebo. I questioned them with regard to the arts and the manners of Europe. I found in your arts many superfluities, and in your manners much contradiction. You know the passion which the blacks have for music and dancing. The Portuguese had many instruments unknown to us; and every evening they plated on them the gayest and most enchanting airs. The young people of the village gathered together, and danced around them; and there I danced with Ellaroe. The strangers brought us from their ships the most exquisite wines, with liquors and fruits that were delicious to our taste. They sought our friendship, and we loved them truly. They informed us, one day, that they were now obliged to leave us, and to return t their country: the news affected the whole village, but no one more that Ellaroe. They told us, with tears, the day of their departure; they said they would leave us with less regrets, if we would give them an opportunity to testify their regard, by entertaining us on board their ships: the pressed us to repair to them the next morning, with the young men and the prettiest girls of the village. Accordingly, conducted by Matomba, and by some old people for the sake of decency, we set off for the ships.

"Onebo is but five miles from the sea, and we were upon the shore an hour after sunrise. We saw two vessels at a little distance from each other: they were covered with branches of trees, the sails and the cordage were loaded with flowers. As soon as our friend perceived us, they founded their instruments, and welcomed us songs. The concert and the decorations promised a delightful entertainment. The Portuguese came to receive us; they divided our company, and an equal number went on board each ship. Two guns were fired; the concert ceased; we were loaded with irons; and the vessels set sail.

HERE Zimeo stopt for a moment, then resuming his story: -"yes, my friends," said he, "these men, to whom we had been prodigal of our wealth and of out confidence, carried us away, to sell us with the criminals they had purchased at Benin. I felt at once the misery of Ellaroe. of Matomba, and myself. I loaded the Portuguese with reproaches and threats: I bit my chains, and wished I could die: but a look from Ellaroe changed my purpose. The monster had not separated me from her. Matomba was in the other vessel.

"Three of our young men, and a young girls, found means to put themselves to death. I exhorted Ellaroe to imitate their example; but the pleasure of loving and of being beloved, attached her to life. The Portuguese made her believe that they intended for us a lot as happy as we had formerly enjoyed. She hoped, at least, that we would not be separated, and that she might again find her father.

"After having, for some days, wept the loss of our liberty, the pleasure of being always together stopped the tears of Ellaroe, and abated my despair.

"In those moments, when we were not interrupted by the presence of our inhuman masters, Ellaroe would hold me in her arms, and exclaim, O, my friend! let us endeavour to support and encourage one another, and we shall resist, all they can do to us: assured of your love, what have I to complain of? and what happiness is it, that you would purchase as the expense of that which we now enjoy? These words infused into me extraordinary fortitude; and I had no fear but one - that of being separated from Ellaroe.

"We were more than a month at sea: there was little wind, and our course was slow; at last the winds failed us entirely, and it fell a dead calm. For some days, the Portuguese gave us no more food, that was barely sufficiently to preserve us alive.

"Two negroes, determined on death, refused every species of nourishment, and secretly conveyed to us the bread and the dates that were designed for them. I hid them with care, that they might be employed in preserving the life of Ellaroe.

"The calm continued; the sea, without a wave, presented one vast immoveable surface, to which our vessel seemed attached. The air was as still as the sea. The sun and the stars, in their silent course, disturbed not the profound repose that reigned over the face of the deep. Our anxious eyes were continually directed to that uniform and unbounded expanse, terminated only by the heaven's arch, that seemed to enclose us as in a vast tomb. Sometimes, we mistook the undulations of light for the motion of the waters; but that error was of short duration. Sometimes, as we walked on the deck, we took the resistance of the air for the agitation of a breeze; but no sooner had we suspended our steps, than the illusion vanished; and the image of famine recurring, presented itself to our minds with redoubled horror.

"Our tyrants soon reversed for themselves the provisions that remained, and gave orders, that a part of the blacks should be sacrificed as food for the rest. It is impossible to say, whether this order, or the manner in which it was received, affected me most. I read, on every face, a greedy satisfaction, a dismal terror, a savage hope. I saw those unfortunates companions of my slavery observe one another with voracious attention, and the eyes of tygers.

"Two young girls of the village of Onebo, who had suffered most by the famine, were the first victims. The cries of these unhappy wretches still resound in my ears; and I see the tears streaming from the eyes of their famished companions, as they devoured the horrid repast.

"The little provisions, which I had concealed from the observation of our tyrants, support Ellaroe and myself, so that we were sure of not being destined to the sacrifice. I still had dates, and we threw into the sea, without being observed, the horrid morsels that offered to us.

"The calm continuing, despondency began to seize even our tyrants; they became remiss in their attention to us; they observed us slightly, and we were under little restraint. One evening, when they retired, they left me on the deck with Ellaroe. When she perceived we were alone, she threw her arms around me, and I pressed her with rapture in mine. Her eyes beamed with an unusual expression of sensibility and tenderness. I had never in her presence experienced such ardour, such emotion, such palpitation, as at that moment. Long we remained thus enfolded in one another's arms, unable to speak. "O thou," said I at last. "whom I had chosen to be my companion on a throne, thou shalt at least be my companion in death." "Ah, Zimeo!" said she, "perhaps the great Orissa will preserve our lives, and I shall be thy wife." "Ellaroe," I replied, "had not these monsters by treachery prevailed, Damel would have chosen thee me for thy husband. My beloved Ellaroe, do we still depend upon the authority of Damel, and shall we now wait for orders that we can never receive? No, no far from our parents, torn from our country, our obedience is now due only to our hearts." "O, Zimeo!" cried she, bedewing my face with her tears. "Ellaroe," said I, "if you weep in a moment like this, you love not I as do. "Ah!" replied she, "observe, by the light of the moon, this unchangeable ocean; throw your eyes on these immoveable sails; behold, on the deck, the traces of the blood of my two friends; confider the little that remains of our dates, then - O Zimeo! be but my husband, and I shall be contented!"

"So saying, she redoubled her casresses. We swore, in presence of the great Orissa, to be united, whatever should be our destiny: and we gave ourselves up to numberless pleasures, which we had never before experienced. In the enjoyment of these, we forgot our slavery; the thoughts of impending death, the loss of empire, the hope of vengeance, all were forgotten, and we were sensible to nothing but the blandishments of love. At last, however, the sweet delirium ceased; we found ourselves deserted by every flattering illusion, and left in our former state; truth appeared in proportion as our sense regained their tranquility; out souls began to suffer unusual oppression; weighed down on every side, the calm we experienced was awful and dead, like the stillness of nature around us.

"I was roused from this despondency by a cry from Ellaroe; her eyes sparkled with joy; she made me observe the sails and the cordage agitated by the wind; we felt the motion of the waves; a fresh breeze sprung up, that carried the two vessels in three days to Porto-Bello.

"There we met Matomba; he bathed me with his tears; he embraced his daughter, and approved of our marriage. Would you believe it, my friends? the pleasure of rejoining Matomba, the pleasure of being the husband of Ellaroe, the charms of her love, the joy of seeing her safe from such cruel distress, suspended in me all feeling of our misfortunes: I was ready to fall in love with bondage; Ellaroe was happy her father seemed to reconciled to his fate. Yes, perhaps, I might have pardoned the monsters that had betrayed us; but Ellaroe and her father were sold to an inhabitant of Port-Bello, and I to a man of your nation, who carried slaves to the Antilles.

"It was then that I felt the extent of my misery; it was then that my natural disposition was changed; it was then imbibed that passion for revenge, that thrift of blood, at which I myself shudder, when I think of Ellaroe, whose image alone is able to still my rage.

"When our fate was determined, my wife and her father threw themselves at the feet of the barbarians that separated us; even I prostrated myself before them: ineffectual abasement! they did not even deign to listen to us. As they were preparing to drag me away, my wife, with wildness in her eyes, with outstretched arms, and shrieks that still rend my heart, rushed impetuously to embrace me. I disengaged my self from those who held me; I received Ellaroe in my arms; she infolded me in hers, and instinctively, by a sort of mechanical impulse, we clasped our hands together, and formed a chain round each other. Many cruel hands were employed, with vain efforts, to tear us asunder. I felt that these efforts would, however, soon prove effectual: I was determined to rid myself of life; but how leave in this dreadful world my dear Ellaroe! I was about to lose her forever; I had everything to dread; I had nothing to hope; my imaginations were desperate; the tears ran in streams over my face; I uttered nothing but frantic exclamations, or groans of despair, like the roarings of a lion, exhausted in unequal combat. My hands gradually loosened from the body of Ellaroe, and began to approach her neck. Merciful Orissa! the whites extricated my wife from my furious embrace. She gave a loud shriek of despair, as we were separated; I saw her attempt to carry her hands towards her neck, to accomplish, my fatal design; she was prevented; she took her last look of me. Her eyes, her whole countenance, her attitude, the inarticulate accents that escaped her, all bespoke the extremities of grief and of love.

"I was dragged on board the vessel of your nation; I was pinioned, and placed in such a manner as to make any attempt upon my life impossible; but they could not force me to take any sustenance. My new tyrants at first employed threats, at last they made me suffer torments, which whites alone can invent; but I resisted all.

"A negro, born at Benin, who had been a slave for two years with my new master, had compassion on me. He told me that we were going to Jamaica, where I might easily recover my liberty: he talked to me of the wild negroes, and of the commonwealth they had formed in the centre of the island; he told me that these negroes sometimes went on board English ships, to make depredations on the Spanish islands; he made me understand, that in one of those cruises, Ellaroe and her father might be rescued. He awakened in my heart the ideas of vengeance and the hopes of love. I consented to live; you now see for what. I am already revenged, but I am not satisfied till I regain the idols of my heart. If that cannot be, I renounce the light of the fun. My friends, take all my riches, and provide me a vessel -"

Here Zimeo was interrupted by the arrival of Francisco, supported by the young negro who so suddenly retired upon the fight of his prince. No sooner had Zimeo perceived them, than he flew to Francisco. "O, my father! O Matomba!" cried he, "is it you? do I indeed see you again? O Ellaroe!" "She lives," said Matomba; "she lives, she weeps your misfortunes, she belongs to this family."

"Lead me, lead me," - "See," interrupted Matomba, shewing him Wilmot's friend, "there is the man who saved us." Zimeo embraced by turns, now Matomba, now Wilmot, and now his best friend; then with wild eagerness, "lead me," he cried, "to my love." Marianne, or rather Ellaroe, was approaching; the same negro, who had met Matomba, had gone in quest of her; she came trembling, lifting her hands and eyes to heaven; and with tears in her eyes, in a faint voice, she could hardly utter, "Zimeo, Zimeo." She had put her child into the arms of the negro, and after the first transports and embraces were over, she presented the infant to her husband. "Zimeo, behold thy son! for him alone have Matomba and I supported life." Zimeo took the child, and killed him a thousand and a thousand times. "He shall not be a slave," cried he; "the son of my Ellaroe shall not be a slave to the whites." "But for him," said she, "but for him, I should have quitted this world, in which I could not find the man whom my soul loved." The most tender discourses at last gave place to the sweetest caresses, which were only suspended to bestow these caresses on their child. But soon their gratitude to Wilmot and his friend engrossed them wholly; and surely never did man, not even a negro, express this amiable sentiment so nobly and so well.

Zimeo, being informed that the English troops were on their march, made his retreat in good order. Ellaroe and Matomba melted into tears on quitting Wilmot. They would willingly have remained his slaves; they conjured him to follow them to the mountain. He promised to visit them there as soon as the peace should be concluded between the wild negroes and the colony. He kept his word; and went thither often, to contemplate the virtue, the love, and the friendship of Zimeo, of Matomba, and of Ellaroe.

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It is with peculiar satisfaction, we assure the friends of humanity, that, in prosecuting the design of our association, our endeavours have proved successful, far beyond our most sanguine expectations.

Encouraged by this success, and by the daily progress of that luminous and benign spirits of liberty, which is diffusing itself throughout the world - and humbly hoping for the continuance of the divine blessing on our labours - we have ventured to make an important addition to our original plan, and do, therefore, earnestly solicit the support and assistance of all who can feel the tender emotions of sympathy and compassion, or relish the exalted pleasure of beneficence.
Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.

The unhappy man, who has long been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart. Accustomed to move like a mere machine, by the will of the master, reflexion is suspended; he has not the power of choice; and reason and conscience have but little influence over his conduct: because he is chiefly governed by the passion of fear. He is poor and friendless - perhaps worn out by extreme labour, age and disease.

Under such circumstances, freedom may often prove a misfortune to himself, and prejudicial to society.

Attention to emancipated black people, it is therefore to be hoped, will become a branch of our
national police; but as far as we contribute to promote this emancipation, so far that attention is evidently a serious duty, incumbent onus, and which we mean to discharge to the best of our judgement and abilities.

To instruct - to advise - to qualify - those who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty- to promote habits of industry - to furnish them with employments suited to their age, sex, talents, and other circumstances - and to procure their children, an education calculated for their future situation in life - these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted, and which we conceive will essentially promote the public good, and the happiness of these our hitherto too much neglected fellow creatures.
A plan so extensive cannot be carried into execution, without considerable pecuniary resources, beyond the present ordinary funds of the society. We hope from the generosity of enlightened and benevolent freemen, and will gratefully receive any donations or subscriptions for this purpose, which may be made to our treasurer, James Starr, or to James Pemberton, chairman of our committee of correspondence.
Signed by order of the society,
B. FRANKLIN, president.
Philadelphia, 9th of Nov. 1789.

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The trustees of the school instituted for the education of negro children, feel themselves induced, from a sense of duty, and to promote the cause of humanity, to inform the public, that the benevolent design of enlightening a part of the community, is likely to succeed, and it is hoped will answer the most sanguine expectations of its patrons. The pupils have evidently made considerable proficiency in the different branches of learning, and, in some instances, a brightness of natural genius and understanding is apparent, which, like some latent quality in the human mind, hath lain, as it were, in a state of obscurity and inaction; hence the utility of early affording encouragement, whereby the natal powers in children may be expanded, and the faculties left at liberty to emerge from their narrow inclosures - great advantages are expected from a due attention to the education of youth, and from the apparent good which hath already resulted from this institution.

The trustees are encouraged to continue their care and zeal for its promotion; and notwithstanding the contributions of many have been liberal, yet the annual expense is such, that the income of the permanent fund being inadequate, they are obliged to have recourse to the society's general flock, to make up the deficiency; a circumstance they are anxious to avoid, and are therefore induced to solicit some further addition to said fund; that they may be enabled, not only to support the institution on its own basis, but extend its greater usefulness, by enlarging the original plan, which cannot be done, without an augmentation of resources to carry it into effect; and as this seminary may probably conduce to the advantages of the community, not only in respect to the benefits, which those, who are the more immediate objects of its care, will receive - but as it may qualify a race of beings, now sunk in stupid ignorance, to become safe and useful members of society - let us persevere in our wellmeant endeavors, to promote the cause of humanity, and, by a due attention, contribute all we well can, to the increase of support of this laudable undertaking.

The trustees are authorised to inform the public, that the children of slaves who are still held in bondage, will be (as well as those who are already liberated) admitted into the school, free expense, provided they have attained the age of nine years, and are capable of spelling words of one syllable.
Signed on behalf, and by direction of the trustees;
J. MURRAY, jun. clerk.
New York, 10th month, 24th, 1789.

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The business, relative to free blacks, shall be transacted by a committee of twenty-four persons, annually elected by ballot, at the meeting of this society, in the month called April; and in order to perform the different services, with expedition, regularity, and energy, this committee shall resolve itself into the following sub-committees, viz.
I.
A committee of inspection, who shall superintend the morals, general conduct, and ordinary situation of the free negroes, and afford them advice and instruction; protection from wrongs; and other friendly offices.
II.
A committee of guardians, who shall place out children and young people with suitable persons, that they may (during a moderate time of apprenticeship, or servitude) learn some trade of other business of subsistence. The committee may effect this partly by a persuasive influence on parents and the persons concerned; and partly by co-operating with the laws, which are, or may be enacted for this, and similar purposes; in forming contracts on these occasions, the committee shall secure to the society, as far as many be practicable, the right of guardianship, over the persons so bound.
III.
A committee of education, who shall superintend the school-instruction of the children and youth of free-black; they may either influence them to attend regularly the schools, already established in this city, or form others with this view; they shall, in either face, provide, that the pupils may receive such learning, as is necessary for their future situation in life; especially a deep impression of the most important, and generally acknowledged moral and religious principles. They shall also procure and preserve a regular record of the marriages, births, and manumissions, of all free blacks.
IV.
A committee of employ, who shall endeavour to procure constant employment for those free negroes, who are able to work: as the want of this would occasion poverty, idleness, and many vicious habits. This committee will, by sedulous enquiry, be enabled to find common labour for a great number; they will also provide, that such as indicate proper talents, may learn various trades, which may be done by prevailing upon them to bind themselves for such a term of years, as hall compensate their masters for the expense and trouble of instruction, and maintenance. The committee may attempt the institution of some useful and simple manufactures, which require but little skill, and also may assist, in commencing business, such as appear to be qualified for it.
Whenever the committee of inspection, shall find persons of any particular description, requiring attention, they shall immediately direct them to that committee, of whose care they are the proper subjects.
In matters of a mixed nature, the committees shall confer, and, if necessary, act in concert. Affairs of great importance ,shall be referred to the whole committee.
The expense, incurred by the prosecution of this plan, shall be defrayed by a fund to be formed by donations, or subscriptions, for these particular purposes, and to be kept separate from the other funds of this society.
The committee shall make a report of their proceedings, and of the state of their flock, to the society, at their quarterly meetings, in the months called April and October.
Philadelphia, 26th, 1789.

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THE mate of a ship, engaged in the slave trade, who was in the long boat, purchased a young woman, with a fine child, of about a year old, in her arms. In the night, the child cried much, and disturbed his sleep. He rose up in great anger, and swore, that if the child did not cease making such a noise, he would presently silence it. The child continued to cry. At length he rose up a second time, tore the child from the mother, and threw it into the sea. The child was soon silenced indeed; but it was not so easy to pacify the woman. She was too valuable to be thrown overboard; and he was obliged to bear the sound of her lamentations, until he could put her on board his ship.

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A Captain of a slave ship, whose water was nearly exhausted, and who expected a mortality among his slaves, threw one hundred of them overboard. The loss was hereby to fall on the underwriters, who, had they died on board, would not have been obliged to pay for them!

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Some years since, in one of the French West India islands, a slave was tortured for a slight offence, of which he was not even guilty. Stung with resentment - and agitated by the feelings of a Zanga, he seized upon the children of his cruel and unfeeling oppressor; and carried them on the roof of the house. When the tyrant master was approaching to enter his dwelling, he beheld his youngest son dashed to pieces at his feet; he lifted up his eyes, and saw the second falling likewise. Seized with despair, he fell on his knees to implore, in great agitation, the life of the third: but the fall also of the last of his offspring, together with that of the revengeful negro, plunged him into the lowest abyss of misery and despair.

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NOTWITHSTANDING the recommendations of the word of God, "not to muzzle even the ox, when he treadeth out the corn," nor "to rebuke the needy passenger, who plucks an ear of wheat for his necessity," yet in Jamaica, and in other islands, the poor African, whose lot is cast in the most severe of all cases, hard labour, without pity or reward, is not suffered, either through hunger or desire, to taste the growing work, that ripens, under his hand. The threat - the terror of the lash, and even its severer smart, are not enough to satisfy the planter's avarice; the slave's mouth must be muzzled. The instruments is of iron; an oval rim, about half an inch broad, surrounds the face; the lower part of which, as high as the bottom of the nose, is filled up with a thin plate of iron, perforated with small holes, on the inside of which is fixed a square piece of iron, which runs into the mouth, and presses down down the tongue to its roots. This mask is flattened on this; from the forehead runs an iron as broad as the above rim, over the head, and down behind to the collar bone, where it meets two familiar rims, that come from the bottom, near the cheeks, round the neck, and join behind, through an eye in the back rim, whereupon is fixed a padlock; the weight of which is discretionary.
This muzzle has another use, viz. to prevent our injured fellow creatures from being heard when they are writhing under the severity of the merciless lash - Kingston, April 11, 1789

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QUASHI was brought up in the family with his master, as his play-fellow, from his childhood. Being a lad of parts, he rose to be driver, or black overseer, under his master, when the plantation fell to him by succession. He retained for his master the tenderness which he had felt in childhood for his playmate; and the respect with which the relation of master inspired him, was softened by the affection which the remembrance of their boyish intimacy kept alive in his breast. He had no separate interest of his own, and, in his master's absence, redoubled his diligence, that his affairs might receive no injury from it. In short, here was the most delicate, yet most strong, and seemingly indissoluble tie, that could bind master and slave together.

Though the master had judgment to know when he was well served, and policy to reward good behaviour, he was inexorable, when a fault was committed; and when there was but an apparent cause of suspicion, he was too apt to let prejudice usurp the place of proof. Quashi could not exculpate himself to his satisfaction, for something done, contrary to the discipline of the plantation, and was threatened with the ignominious punishment of the cart-whip; and he knew his master too well, to doubt of the performance of his promise.

A negro, who has grown up to manhood, without undergoing a solemn cart-whipping, (as some by good chance will) especially if distinguishing by any accomplishment among his fellows, takes pride in what he calls the smoothness of his skin, and its being [unraised] by the whip; and he would be at more pains, and use more diligence to escape such cart whipping, than many of our lower sort would use to shun the gallows. It is not uncommon for a sober, good negro to stab himself mortally, because some boy overseer has flogged him, for what he reckoned a triflees, or for his caprice; or threatened him with a flogging, when he thought he did not deserve it. Quashi dreaded this mortal wound to his honour, and slipt away, unnoticed, with a view to avoid it.

It is usual for slaves, who expect to be punished for their own faults, or their master's caprice, to go to some friend of their master's, and beg him to carry them home, and mediate for them. This is found to be so useful, that humane masters are glad of the pretence of such mediation, and will secretly procure it, to avoid the necessity of punishing for trifles; it, otherwise, not being prudent to pass over, without correction, a fault once taken notice of; while, by this method, an appearance of authority and discipline is kept up, without the severity of it. Quashi, therefore, withdrew, resolving to shelter himself, and save the glossy honours of his skin, under favour of this custom, till he had an opportunity of applying to an advocate. He lurked among his master's negro huts; and his fellow slaves had too much honour, and too great a regard for him, to betray to their master the place of his retreat. Indeed, it is hardly possible, in any case, to getone slave to inform against another; much more honour have they than Europeans of low condition.

The following day, a feast was kept, on account of his master's nephew then coming of age; amidst the good humour of which, Quashi hoped to succeed in his application; but before he could execute his design - perhaps just as he was setting out to solicit this mediation - his master, while walking about the fields, fell in with him. Quashi, on discovering him, ran off, and the master, who is a robust man, pursued him. A stone, or a clod, tripped Quashi up, just as the other reached out his hand to seize him. They fell together, and wrestled for the mastery; for Quashi was a stout man, and the elevation of his mind added vigour to his arm. At last, after a severe struggle, in which each had been several times uppermost, Quashi got firmly seated on his master's breast, now panting and out of breath, and with his weight, his thighs and one hand secured him motionless. He then drew out a sharp knife, and, while the other lay in dreadful expectations, helpless, and shrinking into himself, he thus addressed him: 'master, I was bred up with you from a child: your playmate when a boy; I have loved you as myself; your interest has been my study; I am innocent of the cause of your suspicion; had I been guilty, my attachment to you might have pleaded for me - yet you have condemned me to a punishment, of which I must ever have borne the disgraceful marks - this only can I avoid them.' With these words, he drew the knife with all his strength across his own throat, and fell down dead, without a groan, on his master, bathing him in his blood.

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At a late public sale of negro slaves, at Santa Cruz, among the great numbers that christian avarice had been either the immediate or secondary means of placing on a level with the cattle, daily brought to market, were two, each of them apparently about the age of 30, whose deportment seemed superior to the rest. What their rank had really been, they, with sullen dignity, seemed resolved to conceal from every one. Yet, mingled with a haughty manner to all besides, there appeared in every look and action, the tenderest affection and heart-felt attachment to each other. When the captain of the vessel, which had brought them thither, entered on the necessary business of distributing the slaves into proper lots for sale, both of them, in the most submissive manner, and with the eagerness that spoke more than common feelings, clung round his knees, and hung about his garment, intreating him only to favour them, so far as to permit them both to be appointed to the same lot, by which means they might serve one master, and at least enjoy the trifling satisfaction of being companions, even in slavery. But even this poor request itself, either through the brutality of the salesman, or from apprehensions of their combining in some mutinous design, was denied them.

Yet, earnest as they seemed in their desire, the refusal was received with manly resignation by them both; and when upon the point of being delivered to their respective masters, they only begged the leave of a few words with one another, permitted our of hearing, though not out of fight of those they were to serve. This was allowed them, and after a few minutes conversation, and a close embrace, they were sent to their respective stations. Seven days after the transaction, they were both missing at the same hour; nor were they, through the strictest search was made after them, to be found; 'till at a week's distance, a planter riding through a thicket, which lay in the midway between the two plantations they had been destined to, saw, to his great surprise, two bodies hanging on one tree, locked fast in each other's arms, embracing and embraced; which, on enquiry made, proved to be the faithful, yet desperate friends.