The Pennsylvania packet, or, The general advertiser — Lancaster, Pa.;Philadelphia, Pa., 1780-01-01 00:00:00, page 1

One Hundred an d Thirty Dollars Reward.
S TO L E N,
A few days past, ot of a Gentleman's house,
ALARGE SILVER TABLE SPOON,
m^dc in England ; it has the Tower ff'dip on it,
and on the end of the handle is engraved a fl/ming c;f
*'*, the coat of arms o' th? own^r. All h'vrr-fmiths
and orders, to whom the fame mar be offered for sale,
are requeued to frenre it. One Hundred Dollars
will be given ^5 a :r^ d for the dilcovery Of the tuuf,
and Thirty Dollars for the spoon.
December 27, 1779.
To be SOL D by Public Au^hn,
At the Coffd-houfe, on W\;dhefdhy the fifth of January,
*t Five o'clock in thv evening,
'J 1 W 0 frune Tenements in W^nut-fmet, rear
Fourth-ft^et; ok;e frame ditto in Second firmer
near Snippedftreet ; one Let of G lund on H^r^
Lane, to the westward of Paffyum.Road ; a Leaf* of
f° ur years to com? of - ighreen acres of Meadow in King
feffing; a Paint-Mill, &c. Due attendance will be
given by
WILLIAM BROWN, Auctioneer.
Teneriffe WINE and CLARET,
TO BE SOLD BY
MEREDITHS and CLYMER.
BY virtue of a Writ of Fieri F;.cis, to me the feb
fcriber dirc&ed and delivered, wll be *xpofed to
lide by Public Vendue, at the Itore of Robert Roberts
, Market street, between Fourth and Frttti-ftrem,
Philadelphia, on Tuesday the eleventh dav of J nu
next, at Three o'clock in the afternoon, a quantity of
OLD IRON, in lots of aboutzoo wt, each. S^zed
and taken in execution at the fmt of Whitehead
^"rr,""' H^ inft .J°SEPH Fox, Ute of the c.ty of
Philadelphia, BUckimith, by
JAMES CLAYPOOLE, Sheriff.
December 28, 1779.
TO BE
Or EXCHAN GED for a Negro Wench
A ,F° R ° BOY about twelve yfos of age, very
like.y and active, and will make xn excellent ier
vant. Enquire of the Printer.
TAKE N U P
ASTRAL ED brindle CO W, of a large size, a
goou deal of white about b er , and fuppoted to
have had nnt more than three calves ; alarge piece has
been cut est her right ear, and a deep flit cut in the re
manning part. She came to the pUntmon of the lu -
Briber in Moyamenfing, near Brockden's plantation
2bout four weeks ago. The owner paying charges may
have her again, by applying to 0 j
Dcc. „. CHRISTOPHER SLIECK.
The HIGHEST PRICE
IS GIVEN FOR
CLEAN LINEN RAGS,
BY /
JOHN D U N L A P.
L E I S ' W Il'S,
Of Philadelphia, SCRIVENER,
HA S removed to Arch street, the second or third
door below the house which is right opposite to
the gates of the English Church Burying ground; where
be iontinues to draw all manner of Writings for trans
fering and rffming the property and possession of r^al
and personal ?ftates, fetthments, covenants, and agree
ments of any kind ; States of the C^ and Arguments
upon titles of land and ri hts in claim or controvert,
to lay before Counsel, Judges, Auditors, or Arbitrators:
Letters of Attorney or Agency, to tranfa& business in
foreign ountrits : Also Petitions, Memorials o- Ad
dresses to Cong els, and its several Departments 01 Com
mittees, to the Representatives in Ass mbly, the Presi
dent in Council, and Courts of Judicature. He alfb
tranflites into English any foreign Cor.tr fts, or other
Writings of & public nature, trom the French, German,
Hollandifh, and Latin languages. 6.
TO BE SOLD BY
FREDERICK PHI LE,
At his house in Sgcondftretr, bet een Market and
Chefnut streets, and oppefite Black horse Alley,
A QU AN FIFY of Salt-Petre, a variet of frefh
Medicines, a f&w kegs of Yellow Ochre ground in
oil, ferae Whitt L^d, &c. Asa a quantity of Ink
SATURDAY, - JANUARY 1, '
THE
OR C ^ < ^ ^$ ^^
GENERAL —^T ADVERTISER
[ Published every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. ]
For the PENNSYLvANIA PACKET.
Another LETTER to a Clergyman in the country,
on the question, .Whether the Children of Slaves ought
to be held in bondage?
Philadelphia, December 24, ,1779.
Reverend and Dear Sir,
ON the nth in ftant I wrote to you at some length,
concerning a memorial presented to the late House
of Assembly, against the bill then depending for the gra
dual abolition of slavery; which bill has been resumed
and published for consideration, by die present House. Ac
cording to this, the children of haves hereafter born are
to be Servants for such time only, as may fuffice to recom
mence their matters for their nurture; whilst, all further
importation of slaves is to be forbidden. My remarks on
this piece are addressed to you, because the signers were
of your county, and mostly Preibyterians.
In my letter above mentioned, I gave, as I apprehend,
a full answer to the authorities for slavery, produced by
the memorialifts, from the laws of Moses ; and I endea
voured to fliew that they can derive no advantage to their
cause from the silence of the New Testament. Taking
this matter at large, one would be apt to think that exam
ples of law and policy, drawn from the statutes of a peo
ple, placed in such Angular circumstances as the children
of Ifyael were, must be very unsuitable to this, of any 0-
ther State. Vet, it is plain, that the superb pontifical ha
bits of bishops and priests; holy things, holy places, and
holy days; the prohibition of lending upon interest ;
tythes; hierarchies and the civil establishment of a public
faith; and the authority to punilh all whodiffent therefrom;
together with divers other imitations, have been taken
from Judaism into Christianity, without considering the
very different genius of these religions, 'as though the
law of Moses were an indubitable warrant for such trans
fers. If Jewilli precedents avail for this purp o se, what are
we to think of the late Convention of this State, who have
reprobated the incorporation of religion, with civil go
vernment, as inconsistent with liberty; fcr the bill of
rights provides, that " no man ought to be compelled to
attend on any religious worthip, nor to maintain any (re-
Jigous) minifiry, against his consent." However, if
princes, flattfmen and people; if bishops and councils,
have been long bewildered in a maze of errors on this fub
jed, we may easily pardon the mistake of taefe memorial
ifts, in supporting their claim to the perpetual servitude of
the offspring of their slaves, by citations from the writings
of Moses.
What has been fa id in my former letter, or in this, con
cerning the law of Moses, must not betaken as a censure
on his infinotions I believe they were very wifely
adapted to the purpose forwaich they were made. They
were beyond all peradventure, the heft that the children
of Krael were capable of in their circumstances. An in
fiance from another quarter will illustrate my meaning.
When toe barbarous nations, who over-ran the south of
Europe, in tne third and fourth centuries adjusted with
curious accuracy, a scale of fatisfaaions or compositions
to be offered by the offender to the party vafted with the
right of redrafting a murder, or other wrong; this was a
happy contrivance of their Princes to assuage the defla
tions and miseries caused by this savage mode of prevent
ing and punching of crimes; and altho it be obvious
that this commuting of what we efleem public offences,
was fundamentally wrong, yet it was the best regulation
whi h these people in their circumstances were qualified
to receive. It was therefore vindicable; it was good far
them. * For the right which every man claims and exer
cises of aven ing his own wrongs, which is necessary, and
may be tolerable in a date of nature, or in a very uncivi
lized society, having been in the case of these emigrants
continued in the more populous countries, wherein they
fettled, this usage became intolerable in their altered fitsa
tion. Should ;t be alked, why did not their rulers pro
vide courts or justice to judge and punish outrages? I
answer; these people were incapable of such an improve
ment, as the establishment of an umpire to decide their
differences. According to their notions, it would have
reflected public dishonour on the part, injured, to commit
his vengeance to any other hand than his owu.§ For
they considered)it, the duty as well as the privilege of
the party who was offended, or called by cuftorn to exe
cute revenge, to do it 4imfelf. Much then was gained to
the public, by the preventing or bringing any of these
petty hoflilities, often extensive and lading, toa period,
* Robertson's History of Charles sth.
§ This seems to be common to all uncultivated people. In
the laws of England before the conquest, we find a price
let for taking away life, or other injury, proportioned to
every rank t; the State, from the King to the slave, icclu
e (^) Fhe aboriginal inhabitants of America have
generally like notions anl practices. The savage tho'
nioftiy implacable in exercising private revenge on his
wronger, yet sometimes is appealed by a competition in
homicide; for inffance, a captive in war fubftiiuted in the
place of t.be frin.
(a) Hume's History of England.
by theacceptance of a compensation ; as the point of ho
nor did not alwaysadmit of waving the proper fatisfaftion.
In fad this practice of avenging injuries, thus exercised by
individuals, is th e last of those natural rights necessary to
be yielded in society, which a people emerging out of a
state of nature gives up to the Magistrate; of which the
perverse practice of duelling, continued into our times, is,
at once, an illuftratlon and a proof
Apply what has been said, to Moses. He found the
Israelites in so rude a state, as to pradife private revenge
in the case of murder. Thus cir :umftanced, they must
have been, morally speaking, incapable of a regular
course of justice in this particular. He therefore provi
ded cities of refuge, a very inferior relief, for the c dual
manflayer to flee to, as the bast qualifying of this dangerous
mode of punishing the offenders, which the nation could
bear. Hereby he prudently removed the person innocently
involved in homicide, from the fight and undiftinguilhing
resentment of the relations, until the death f the high
priest; which was doubtless an inconveniency to the un
fortunate person, arising from the want of civilization and
a due course of justice among the Jews. And in the case
of slavery, may we not collect from the conduct of this
great levator, that it was expedient for him. in order to
induce the children of Israel to forbear from reducing
their brethren to bondage, to permit them to make slaves
of strangers, tho' it was wrong in itfelf. For we find
notwithstanding this indulgence, they were too apt to re
tain their Hebrew Servants, in perpetual servitude. See
Jerem. xxxiv, B—l 2. Amos viii. 6. Nehem. v. 8. By
the flory ofthe enslaving of Joseph, sod by his brothers
into Egypt, and the ready purchase of him by the Midia
nite merchants, without enquiring into the title of the
fellers, it appears, that the dealers in m^n, of those day's,
were as hardened in the sale of their fellow immortals, as
our modern guinea traders, who supply America with'ne
groes. But I proceed to other topics of the Mernofi kfj.
These men suppose, that the emancipation of the yc©!,
negroes would be an injury toa race so indolent and help
less, as the Africans, and place them in worse circumfian
ces, than their parents; a notion, that can only arise from
the experience we have of the villifying elFeßs of slavery,
which without doubfcdeflroy industry, care and often
times every virtue. Whereas those who would crowup,
with the certainty of freedom, would be charad'ers of &
very differentcaft. This objection, if good for any thing,
would also juftify the enslaving of all poor whites of (lender
understandings, and inactive dispositions. It would vin
dicate the most horrid oppression and tyranny; and re
proach the great Author of Nature, with having failed in
the production of his principal Creature, man.
The fears, exprefled in the memorial, ofthe danger that
the young blacks, thus set free, would run, of being kid
napped to the Weft.lndia iflands,or the Southern States -
and so be reduced to a more cruel bondage, than they
would have been born to, if left in slavery, deserves atten
tion; but I suppose it may be prevented, by the watchful
interpolation of benevolent men, who, it is hoped, will be
found in every part ; and by the fear ofthe penalty, ' whicli
the law has provided, to wit, fine, imprisonment and the
pillory ; without recurring to the infliction of death, as
ordained by the Jewish law, on man-dealers. In the
manner, on which negroes are now held, a slave born in
this land of liberty, and brought up under that mild treat
ment, which the practice of Pennsylvania requiresof eve
ry master, is liable to be forced from wife, children and
a good country, to the fartheft and worst parts ofthe
earth : Nor is this supposition, meerly ; for many such
poor wretches have actually been dragged from this State,
and their dearest connections, to distant and inhospitable
lands. ^
The difficulties which the grant of freedom to the off
fpring of our negroes might occasion in Carolina, Virgi
nia and other States, where slaves abound, have been con
templated, before these memorable fuggefled them. Ifany
filch were likely, the Southern Stites would be jealous of
them. Yet above ten months haveelapfed, since the Coun
cil recommended this measure to the Legislature in •
message, which was inserted in the news-papers.' And
soon after, the Bill wa ? published for consideration. As
the Southern States have Delegates in Congress fitting here
they have I,ad full notice of the design, yet no objection 011
their part has appeared. On the contrary, many gentle
men from the Southward tell us, that persons of genero
sity and liberality in that country, applaud the wisdom
and benevolence of our Assembly.
I do not recoiled any thing farther, urged by the me
morialifts, that is important. Tne unjust and unprovoked
| | lt ou^ht noe to be said, that this great man, affine
un er divine direction, needed not thus to accomodate his
ordinances, to the prejudices and ignorance of his people,
for we are expressly told that he yielded to this difficulty in
allowing of divor e. Mat. xix 8. and it is probable that
poligamy was allowed on the fame ground. The Jews
were de^lt with, as moral agents, and as men capable of
being influenced by promises, threatnings, and such other
motives, as determine the human mind, without compell
ing it. r •