is expected that negro labour will be introduced generally, if not exclusively. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that it is better adapted to the manufactory than to the field, and that the negro character is susceptible of a high degree of manufacturing cultivation. Should this kind of labour be found to succeed, of which I think, from some years' acquaintance with it, there can be no doubt,—it will give a decided advantage to the southern over the northern or European manufacturer. This kind of labour will be much cheaper, and far more certain and controllable. He will have nothing to do with 'strikes' or other interruptions, that frequently produce serious delay and loss to the employer. Before the present year the average expense for a good negro man per year, might be estimated at one hundred dollars, for field labour. Some superior hands, well acquainted with tobacco manufacturing, or good mechanics, would perhaps go to one hundred and fifty dollars. These prices include hire, food, clothing, &c. This year, in consequence of the great demand for labourers on the railroads, they are at least twenty dollars higher.

"The water power of Petersburg, though inferior in magnitude to that of Richmond, is yet very considerable. It is also without the advantages of an immediate connexion with the coal and iron regions; nor has it so good a navigation as the latter, as vessels only of six feet draught of water can come to it, while those drawing eleven may go to Richmond; yet is Petersburg as well, if not better, situated for the cotton manufacturing than Richmond. A railroad of sixty miles in length connects it with the Roanoke, and brings to it daily large quantities of cotton, from which it can have the first and best selection. This, together with the cheapness of water power, building materials, and all the articles that enter into the consumption of those who labour, give to it great advantages. Besides its cotton manufactories, it has a cotton seed oil mill, and several flour mills.

"Besides these two prominent places, many others may be found in Eastern Virginia, but little less favourably situated for manufactories. At Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock, is a considerable water power, and on nearly all the rivers that empty into the Chesapeake, there are more or less sites. On the James River, between Richmond and the mountains, they are almost innumerable, and when the state improvements will have been completed, they will all be in good location. Manufacturing is carried on at Wheeling, on the Ohio, but Western Virginia is identified with the great valley of the Mississippi, the future greatness or prosperity of which no imagination can reach,—it is a world in itself, and the world beyond it cannot change its destinies.

"Heretofore the cheapness and superior productiveness of land in the new states, has operated to retard the prosperity of Eastern Virginia; and those causes, to which has recently been added the high price of cotton, are now seriously checking her advancement, by withdrawing much of her money capital, and many of her citizens and labourers to those states, attracted by the prospects there offered, in the cultivation of the soil, a pursuit more congenial to the habits and feelings of Virginians than commercial or manufacturing enterprises. If Virginians had remained on her own soil, and retained, for her own use, the labourers she has grown, and the capital they have earned, instead of building up other states, she would be a giant in these days. It may be better, however, for her sons, herself, and the Union,

that she has peopled Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, than that she should be the first state of the Union, or that the banks of her rivers should be covered with towns and manufactories.

"A new day is dawning in this part of the Old Dominion. She has found that boasting of her past greatness and glory will add nothing to her present prosperity. The active and regenerating spirit of the west has infused new life into her veins, and that same spirit makes her less metaphysical and more rational. The spirit of improvement is abroad, and within a year or two has worked wonders. Every where, railroads, canals, mines, and manufactories, are the subjects of discussion and action. Enterprising citizens of other states and countries are directing their attention to the many inducements she offers for the profitable employment of their skill, their labour, or their capital. Her own enterprising citizens have asked for and will doubtless obtain additional capital by the establishment of new banks. Old habits and feelings may, for a while, check her onward progress, by denying to her the facilities necessary to the full development of her vast resources; yet must the genius of the age triumph; and when the old lion fairly shakes the dew from his mane, and the cobwebs are cleared from her halls of legislation, the manufacturers of the northern states and of the old world will have to look well to their spinning jennies."-Pennsylvanian.

"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth (Massachusetts), to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies, and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country, to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humour, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people." It is not saying too much, when we assert that Slater's opinions and conduct coincided with the above sentiments: and that we have reason to be thankful that his footsteps were directed to America; that it was put into his heart to visit these shores, for the purpose of introducing the cotton spinning into the United States; without which we never could have maintained our independence, but should have relied on foreign supplies. Its establishment is therefore one of the greatest events that has yet taken place in the whole world, and

will in the end be the means of revolutionising the whole inhabitable globe.

Though I was the personal friend of Mr. Slater, and had a better opportunity, than any other individual, of knowing his opinions and views on all subjects connected with business, politics, and religion; yet it is not my intention to press any of his peculiarities, nor did I design to become his eulogist. It was my duty to record the fair fame that had gathered round his successful life. In consequence of his being the introducer of the carding, drawing, roving, and spinning by water, in the improved state as used by Mr. Strutt at Belper, both for stocking yarn and twist; it was not thought improper to connect his memoir with an Essay on Manufactures; so that this circumstance may be noted by future historians of the cotton business in the United States. In this account it was important that a correct statement should be preserved, which would have been difficult to obtain, if the present opportunity had been lost. I am only anxious for the authenticity of my statements, for which I feel myself responsible, and liable to correction. My own views of the character of Samuel Slater are expressed in two words-the Arkwright of America.

Mr. Slater no sooner found that his business collected children and young people, who were destitute of the means of instruction, and knowing the plan of his old master, Strutt, at Belper, in establishing a Sunday school, than he followed his example, and opened a school in his own house, sometimes teaching the scholars himself, but generally hired a person to perform that duty. One young man from Providence college was deterred by his father, who was a minister of the standing order in Connecticut, who considered it a profanation of the Sabbath. But Mr. Slater persevered, and he was assisted by his father-in-law Oziel Wilkinson, and Obadiah Brown-and I am acquainted with persons who are indebted to that institution for all the early instruction they ever received. There are several living who attended this school at Pawtucket. Mr. Slater told me, that he claimed to have commenced the first Sunday school in New England, and I promised him that it should not be forgotten.

These schools have followed almost every manufacturing establishment that I am acquainted with; and there are no places. where they are of so much importance. I observe in the History of Derbyshire, England, that the school which Mr. Strutt established in 1782 is still in existence at Belper, and endowed so that four hundred children are taught, in the common rudiments of English instruction. This gave rise to Sunday schools in Britain, and the

same cause led to their establishment in New England. There may be different opinions respecting what kind of education shall be afforded at Sunday schools, but there can be but one opinion upon their general utility, more especially in manufacturing towns and villages. They have had a very happy effect in the state of Rhode Island, and they have led to the formation of other schools in different parts where instruction had been much neglected.

I conversed with the Rev. Wm. Collier, now engaged in the City Mission in Boston. He stated to me at his house, corner of Chambers and Green street, that he remembers perfectly well in the spring of 1796 that, while at Providence college, President Maxcy informed him that he had received an application from Mr. Slater of Pawtucket, to send him one of the students to instruct a Sunday school, and that he would compensate them for their services. The reason of the president's giving Mr. Collier the first offer was, that he was not able to pay his college expenses. Mr. Collier said, that the compensation would have been a great benefit to him, but he doubted the propriety of teaching a school on Sunday, as he was religiously disposed, and was associated with those who had received their early impressions from the preaching and writings of Mr. Whitfield, and the idea struck him as a profanation of the Sabbath. The president reasoned with him on the opportunity he would have to do good in Pawtucket; stating that there had never been a school of any description there, and no place of worship, and probably no religious or moral instruction, certainly not of a public nature. There was no restriction as to the course of instruction, and he could conduct it, so as to be most useful to the children. These considerations caused him to accept the offer, and he began his labours in the Sunday school on the following Sabbath. He does not recollect that there was any particular form of religious instruction introduced by him, but has no doubt that he did so in a conversational manner with the young people, as he was at that time very religious and disposed to converse with people on the subject.

Mr. Allen succeeded him in teaching the school.

At a fine water privilege in Athens, Georgia, there was established a cotton mill with machinery from England, by Dearing & Co.; it is still in operation, and one also in Columbus. Mills are erecting in Tennessee on a small scale; and in Kentucky they are anxious to obtain persons who understand the business. The time is approaching when there will be factories at the south and far-west: New England must send out her sons to superintend their operations.

CHAPTER VII.

MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS.

"Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities

And know their spring, their head, their true descent."

This chapter is designed to preserve important information which came too late to be arranged in the first part of the work, to which it more properly belongs. The pieces by Tench Coxe are those referred to by Fisher Ames, and which were published under his patronage. They are characteristic of the writer, who was constantly adapting the energies of the people to the natural resources of their country, congenial with their habits, their soil, and their climate.

"A Plan for encouraging Agriculture, and increasing the value of Farms in the Midland and more Western counties of Pennsylvania, by means of Manufactures applicable to several other parts of that State, and to many parts of the United States.*

"In a country, the people, the soil and the climate of which are well suited to agriculture, and which has immense natural treasures in the bowels and on the surface of the earth, the creation of a ready, near, and stable market for its spontaneous and agricultural productions, by the introduction and increase of internal trade and manufactures, is the most effectual method to promote husbandry, and to advance the interests of the proprietors and cultivators of the earth. This position has been assumed by one and maintained and relied upon afterwards by others of the most informed and sound minds in Great Britain, in relation to the internal trade, manufactures, and landed interests of that kingdom, although it is an island, possessing uncommon advantages in its artificial roads, canals, rivers, and bays, which, altogether, afford the inhabitants a peculiar facility in transporting their surplus produce, with very little expense, to foreign markets.

"To a nation inhabiting a great continent, not yet traversed by artificial roads and canals, the rivers of which, above their natural navigation, have been hitherto very little improved, many of

* See Fisher Ames's Letters, pp. 51, 52.