We Were Ushered Into A Cheerful Room, Opening By One Glass Door Upon A
Brilliant Conservatory Of Flowers, And By Another Upon A Neatly-Kept
Garden.
The air was fresh and sweet with the perfume of blossoming
trees, and every thing seemed doubly refreshing from the contrast with
the din and smoke of London.
Our chamber looked out upon a beautiful
park, shaded with fine old trees. While contemplating the white
draperies of our windows, and the snowy robings of the bed, we could
not but call to mind the fact, of which we were before aware, that not
an article was the result of the unpaid oil of the slave; neither did
this restriction, voluntarily assumed, fetter at all the bountifulness
of the table, where free-grown sugar, coffee, rice, and spices seemed
to derive a double value to our friends from this consideration.
Some of the Quakers carry the principle so far as to refuse money in a
business transaction which they have reason to believe has been gained
by the unpaid toil of the slave. A Friend in Edinburgh told me of a
brother of his in the city of Carlisle, who kept a celebrated biscuit
bakery, who received an order from New Orleans for a thousand dollars
worth of biscuit. Before closing the bargain he took the buyer into
his counting room, and told him that he had conscientious objections
about receiving money from slaveholders, and that in case he were one
he should prefer not to trade with him. Fortunately, in this case,
consistency and interest were both on one side.
Things like these cannot but excite reflection in one's mind, and the
query must arise, if all who really believe slavery to be a wrong
should pursue this course, what would be the result? There are great
practical difficulties in the way of such a course, particularly in
America, where the subject has received comparatively little
attention. Yet since I have been in England, I am informed by the
Friends here, that there has been for many years an association of
Friends in Philadelphia, who have sent their agents through the entire
Southern States, entering by them into communication with quite a
considerable number scattered through the states, who, either from
poverty or principle, raise their cotton by free labor; that they have
established a depot in Philadelphia, and also a manufactory, where the
cotton thus received is made into various household articles; and
thus, by dint of some care and self-sacrifice, many of them are
enabled to abstain entirely from any participation with the results of
this crime.
As soon as I heard this fact, it flashed upon my mind immediately,
that the beautiful cotton lands of Texas are as yet unoccupied to a
great extent; that no law compels cotton to be raised there by slave
labor, and that it is beginning to be raised there to some extent by
the labor of free German emigrants. [Footnote: One small town in Texas
made eight hundred bales last year by free labor.] Will not something
eventually grow out of this?
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