The Quakers, Beside Liberating All Their Negroes, Have Contributed Liberally Towards The Funds These Societies Have Established, For Carrying Their Benevolent Intentions Into Effect.

In consequence of these measures, there are a number of free negroes in Philadelphia, whose situation is very comfortable.

A handsome episcopalian church has been built for their use, and one of the most respectable negroes ordained, who performs all the duties of his office with great solemnity and fervour of devotion, assisted occasionally by his white brethren; and there are also two schools, where the children of people of colour are educated gratis; one supported by the quakers, the other by the abolition society.

Negro slavery, under any modification or form, is prohibited in this state (Massachusetts,) also in New Hampshire, the province of Maine, and, _I believe_, in all the _New England states_.

As to your other queries respecting the negroes, I send you my sentiments, infinitely better expressed by Jefferson, notwithstanding all that Imlay, Wilberforce, and other authors, have written against his assertion, viz., that "Negroes are _inferiour_ to the whites, both in the endowments of _body_ and _mind_." I am clearly and decidedly of his opinion. A strict attention to this subject, during three years residence in these states, has convinced me of the truth of every tittle of the following extract from his Virginia, which I enclose for your perusal, and am, most sincerely,

Yours, &c.

"The first difference that strikes us is colour. Whether the black of the negro reside in the reticular membrane, between the skin and scarf skin, or in the scarf skin itself; whether it proceed from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if it's seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expression of every passion by a greater or less suffusion of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, that immovable veil of black, which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference to them, as uniformly as is the preference of the oroonowtang for the black women over those of his own species? The circumstance of superiour beauty is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?

"Beside those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions, proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin; which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps a difference of structure in the pulmonary aparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist, (Crawford) has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air; or obliged them, in expiration, to part with more of it.

"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusement, to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventurous; but this may proceed from want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present; when present, they do not go through it with more coolness and steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after the female; but love seems with them more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions which render it doubtful, whether Heaven has given life to us more in mercy, or in wrath, are less felt and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep, when abstracted from their diversions, or unemployed in labour. An animal, whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory, they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferiour. As I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing, and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites. And where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed, it will be right to make allowances for the difference of condition, of conversation, and of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society; yet many have been so situate, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites; some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best work from abroad. The Indians with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes, not destitute of merit and design. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germe in their minds, which only wants cultivation.

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