28 SEPTEMBER 1839, Page 9

TEXAS.

The following letter from .Tosnen STI:RGE of Birmingham, arrived to late for insertion in last week's .Spectator. Although not altogether agreeing with Friend STVRGE, WC fteliBOwiedgi1 the claim which his high respectability gives him to general attention. The subject of his letter acquires additional importance from the fact, announced this morning,that the French Government have recognized the indirendcnce of' Texas.] TO THE FRIENDS OE THE ABOLITION or TI1E SLAVE-TRADE AND SLAVERY.

Two letters have appeared in various London and Provincial papers on the subject of Texas, and though I was not cognizant of either until I saw them in print, and do not know why the parties thought fit, in publishing their views, to address so humble an individual as myself, vet I am fully- sensible of the momentous importance of the question to the abolition of the slave-trade and slavery. The first of these letters is written by Daniel O'Connell; who, it is needless for me to say, has been a consistent advocate of the freedom of the Negro from the time he first took his seat in Parliament. Without giving an opinion on the details of the plan he proposes, I consider that both it and the two motions of which he has given notice 1;ir next session, are worthy of his prin- ciples as an enemy of slavery. Whether the language he employs is too strong, I leave those to judge who have read a work entitled" American Slavery as it is, on the Testimony of 1,000 Witnesses," recently published. With the author of the second letter, signed William Kennedy, which, controverts the statements and opinions of Daniel O'Connell, I am unac- quainted; and having neither the leisure nor e.hility to enter into the whole question of the Texas, which I trust will shortly be laid before the public by parties thoroughly conversant with it, I will only advert to one or two points in this letter. When asserting that the slave-trade is Made piracy by the Texian Constitution, he also says, "Population being essential to the very exist- ence of the state, American planters were received on the only terms that could induce them to transfer their capital to the soil." The English reader will perhaps hardly believe that these "only terms" arc, that while the slave-trade by sea Is made piracy, the American slave traders by laud should not only have a monopoly of this accursed traffic, without any limit or check from their slave breeding states, but that it should be part of the Texian Constitution that the subject of the abolition of slavery should not even be entertained without five years' notice, a time which it is well known, on the calculation of Southern planters themselves, is about sufficient to work a race of Negroes to death*. The writer of' this letter professes great abhorrence of the character of General Santa Anna; but his real crime in the eyes of the American slave- owners. is enforcing the abolition of slavery throughout the Mexican Republic, when they were waiting to bCi2C Texas as a market for their slaves. This object tvas publicly avowed by them ten yesrs ago. In the debate in the Vir- ginian Convention in 1829, Judge Upsher said, " If it should be our lot, as I trust it will be, to acquire the country of Texas, their price (the slaves') will rise again."—(Debates, page 77.) At the same Convention and in the same year, 1829, (page 890 the Honourable Philip Dodderidge stated, that " the a9uisition of Texas will greatly enhance the property in question," C. Vir- ginian slaves. We are told by the advocate of the Texian scheme, as a caution not to in. terfere, that the cause of emancipation has retrograded in the United States, "owing to the intemperate zeal of the Northern Abolitionists." I need not remind the friends of emancipation in England, that this was ever the favourite asser- tion of the slaveholders and their advocates during the struggle for Negro free- dom in the British West India Co/oaiss, nor yet record the opinion of Ame- rican gentlemen most accurattly informed on the subject, that the bold and strenuous efforts of the Northern Abolitionists, in denouncing this plague- spot of their social and political system, have within the last four years done more towards effecting itsextinction than the exertions of the previous half- century. The slaveowners of the South know this full well. There is rea- son to hope th,t cc en amongst the trifling population of which the Texas is as yet compood, tSere are many honest friends of liberty who will assist in de- stroying this ibitplity in the bud.

I have a letter by the last steam-packet from New York, written by a gen-

tleman imisnately licquainted with that territory, in which he says—" The population consists of eighty to CRC hundred thousand, from all parts of the world, though a prcpontleranc,: from the Southern States. There are perhaps 20,000 :laves. The ksislation and laws favour slavery, though they prohibit the introdustion of slaves from any conatry hut the United States. Some good men whose interest on the subject is confined to their own country, think that it will drain off the slave population of the United States, it' the system is continued there, but this is a shortsighted view of the subject, it ‘vill [rarely furnish it market fur the surplus, and nu inure drain the United States than Louisiana 'irgioia. On the contrary, the inimense regittn of cotton land in Texas opened to this kind of cultivation, will foster and sustain the system of slavery to au extent which can hardly be conceived. Just so first as the increasing population and the greedy rapacity of the Anglo-Saxon race requires a greater extension of territory, they will not fail to find some reason fbr tussling it from the indolent and powerless Mexicans ; and as far as human foresight can penetrate, there is nothing to prevent the re- newal of the accursed system to the Straits of Darien, by a professedly Chris- tian people, where it has once been abolished by a semi-barbarous race. Thera is a general impression in the North, that Texas is a fertile and delightful country, and it is siav,ry alone that prevents all immense emigration from thi • section to that country. Means might also be taken to turn that current of European emigration which is now setting to the North-western States to Texas. A strong party in Texas is in favour of freedom, who have now no- thing to concentrate them, and no opportunity of getting their sentiments betbre the public. It must always be remembered, that the present population of Texas is a niece handful, equal perhaps to one of the wards of sonic of your large cities. Nor need the British Government entertain any fears of embroil- ing itself with the United States by such a proceeding (the promotion of the abolition of slavery); on the contrary, it would meet with the hearty concur- rence of a large majority here."

Such, then, being the fearful plan for erecting the new State of Texas by

giving new hie and energy to a system of crime and injustice, which, in many of the neiAbouring states, is sinking under its inherent rotten tiess, it becomes the duty of every real Abolitionist, whether in Fingland or Amertea, to warn his countrymen against being decoyed within the sphere of its contaminating influ- ence. If, indeed, the strange assertion that "die settlers of Texas are under the influence of Enalish common law were one of substantial truth, then would that country los a sanctuary of freistom for the bleeding victims of the American slave-In:el:, mid to every one who n:ached her S1)il I•vvoine the " leone of the tree,'' asd the of the sy:,tem would he justiiisd in using every legitimate eNertion it: fill, muting the establishment of such a, glorious Republic, and the recognition of its independelice. But, instead of this, the country is designed to be the "home of the slave " and to be peopled by a traffic more hideous than the African slave-trade itself:

I am very respeetfull,y,

Birmingham, 9th Month 11th, 1i9. JOSEPH &VERGE.

* The Reverend Dr. Reed, of London, who went through Kelitucky, and :Mary L•nd, imi the summer of IS:3-t, gives the following testiniony. " 1 was told cm.Latly a: ,d him excellent authority, that receotly at a meethqs of planters in South Carolina, the question wa::. seriously tiler need whether the slave is more profitable to the manes if well fed, well clothed, and worked lightly, or if made the most of at once, and exhausted in some eight years. The decision was in favour of the last alternative."— I "isit to the American Churches, by the re,..ul hrs. !turd mod Nuilheson ; 173. The Reverend .101::: 0. tImid e, reeeatly pastor of :he Baptist Church at New Milford, Ala-sai I; owl Is, of Buffalo, New York, made substantially the folloo invslatement, in a :peech at Boston.

" While anettdia2 the Baptist TiclImil Cups etit:011. at Itiehmatill. Vir4ins, in the spring a itS..9, me, a 1/1.1. . •J11111 11,111 MaSs;a11111-1,11i, I had a eon\ ersation mmli simmers' with an cilicer Mat ens., at whose ti uu I mmmmemim',.t, I a:ked lay lam it ha t that the SlaWS %Wald er1.11111%111,!, ,klid exter-

minate their ma,ter.,: saki the gentleman, I used to apprehend such a (Noss-

trophe ; Litt Gt.d imul, m IA..% I'll ii mmmeimimtg, Ii 1Str.,:f4t sutity•wir,:; and 1101V I (10 not bet a,•ott .ml I.: 1.,..sia.ct ii mimi k ' What do sit meaa, said Mr. Cboidt s, •:■,..f.la,1,1,4 mm l!ivreirlii slut. ? " Why. 'aid the gentleman, I will tell mmmmim 1hp ,I;Lt 11,teri th, -,rJar plaatdi.tai Or tile SO11111. ;11:(1 MI, I, LiN Ilp memo t:ses 11,11 Wc eah Ii so liii, W1. 111,1St keep a stuck kw 1,.r■ at ye ',air' hat Si' part will, the nyet valuable, and at the same tin"' "0",t '10"1/""us; and the Oefilallli, is very con.lant, and likely to be so. Mr %hen they go to tile Stedlierti States, the average eXi:LeItt, Id ONLY FIVE