The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-16 00:00:00

and gentry, are influenced by a higher spirit of Christianity
than all who have preaddedthem—that your statesmen of
the present day are superior in moral excellences to those
illustrious men who shaped the destinies of England in past
times and left to history undying names ? 'lt will be a very,
very difficult matter to furnish us with satisfactory reasons
for this great. and sudden conversion of a whole people, after
losing the American market, on the subject of the slave
trade.; and we women of the United States must ever re-
ceive with suspicion all interference in our domestic -affairs
on the part of the noble ladies of England, ,or any portion
of her inhabitants. Such interference implies either a want
of proper and becoming conduct on our part in the manage-
ment of our negroes, or it seeks to:enlist the sympathies of
the world against us. Your own address (I have the charity
to suppose that it was written in ignorance of the fact, as
it is) represents the southern states 'as denying to their
slaves all religious instruction.: A . calumny more, false
was never uttered. So far from . it, no Sabbath goes by
that the places of worship are not numerously attended by
the black population—edifying discourses are delivered to
them, and often by coloured pastors,: and large numbers
of them are in communion with the churches. And yet
your tears are made to flow freely over the sad and melan-
choly privations of the children of Africa, to whom the
bread of life is represented as denied. Your assertion
could only have been derived from some dealer in and re-
tailer of fiction. It is known hciw 'readily woman's heart
responds to either real or imaginary distress, and, when
woman joins in the concerns of the busy world, how readily
her sympathies become excited by an artificial as well as a
real picture of „ihuman suffering. This sympathy, which
makes her the Om of creation, rather disqualifies her as 4
legislator. and subjects her to be made the. instrument of
the designing. One fact is incontrovertible, and I recom-
mend it to the consideration of the Duchess of Sutherland
and her compeers of high and low degree—that England,
when she had the power to prevent the introduction of
negroes into the -United States, most obstinately refused
to do it ; but now that she is deprived of her authority,
either to advise or dictate; she sighs and sheds tears and
complains over the - injustice and the wrong. The croco-
dile, good sisters of England, is said to cry most piteously;
but woe to the unhappy traveller who is beguiled by its
tears.

I have thus attempted to deal candidly with you in dis-
closing some of the grounds of the suspicions which, in the
estimation of many, attach to your proceedings. I will go
further, and inform you that it is better for both you and
us that we abstain in future from all possible interference
with each other in the domestic concerns of our respective
countries. In the first place, such interference comes with
ill grace from either of us, and can be received with no
favour. In morals we believe ourselves quite your equals,
and therefore it sounds harshly in our ears to be admonished
by you of our sins, real or imaginary. There is a proud heart
in the American breast, which rebels against all assump-
tion on the part of others, although they may wear ducal
coronets or be considered the stars of fashions in foreign
courts. Manage your own affairs as best you may, and
leave us to manage ours as we may think proper. Each of
us shall find abandant employment in the performance of
our respective duties. If you wish a suggestion as to the
suitable occupation of your idle hours, I point you to
the true field of your philanthropy—the unsupplied wants
ofyourown people of England. In view of your palaces there
is misery and suffering enough to excite your most active
sympathies. I remember to have seen lately, that there
were in the city of London alone, 100,000 persons who rose
in the morning without knowing where or how they were
to obtain their " daily bread ;" and I remember, also,
somewhere to have seen that the eleemosynary establish-
ment of England costs annually 10,000,0001. sterling,
a sum greater than that expended by this frugal
and economical Government of ours, with its army
and navy, and navy and civil diplomatic list. Surely,
surely, here is a field large enough for the exercise
of the most generotp_sybipathy„the most unbounded

charity. Go, my good Duchess of 'Sutherland, on an em-
bassy of mercy to the poor, the stricken, the hungry, and
the naked of your own land—cast in their laps the super-
flux of your enormous wealth ; a single jewel from your
hair, a single gem from your dress, would relieve many a
poor woman of England who is now cold and shivering and
destitute. Enter the abode of desolation and want, and
cause squalid wretchedness to put on one smile of comfort,
perhaps the first one which has lighted up its face for a life-
time. Leave it to the women of the South to alleviate the
sufferings of their dependents while you take care of your
own. The negro of the South lives sumptuously in com-
parison with the 100,000 of the white population of London.
He is clothed warmly in winter, and has his meat twice
daily without stint of bread. Rave your working mon,
women, and children as well clothed' and as well fed, and
then go to the serfs of Russia and the negroes of America.
No, I recant the advice. To the serfs of Russia you will
not go. That is an European affair—the affair of a high
and imperial monarch, and of a rich and powerful aristo-
cracy. The poor serf may toil and labour, and stretch his
heartstrings until they crack in agony, and yet the noble
ladies of England will express no sympathy for him, and
present no address to their sisters of Russia upon the sub-
ject of serfdom. You will in no event disturb yourselves
with the past, present, or future condition of the serf. The
newspaper press would admonish you of the danger of in-
terfering in that quarter, and the Emperor Nicholas will
go unquestioned as to the manner and extent of his royal
sway. But I return to your subject—the state of slavery
in our Southern States—and I tell you that you are mis-
taken in supposing that the heart is different from
your own in its sympathies and emotions. Believe me that
the human heart is quite as susceptible with us as with
you. Moralists and dealers in fiction may artfully over-
draw and give false colouring, as they are licensed to
do ; but be not deceived into the belief that the heart of
man or woman, on this side of the Atlantic, is either more
obdurate or cruel than on yours. There is no reason, then,
why you should leave your fellow-subjects in misery at
home in order to take your seat by the side of the black
man on the plantations of America. Even if you are hor-
ror-stricken at the highly-coloured picture of human dis-
tress incident to the separation of husband and wife, and
parents and children under our system of negro slavery—a
thing, by the way, of rare occurrence among us, and then
attended by peculiar circumstances—you have no occasion
to leave your own land for a similar, and still harsher and
more unjust, exercise of authority. Go, and arrest the
proceedings of your Admiralty. Throw your charities
between poor Jack and the press-gang ! He has fought
the battles of England all over the seas. He was at
the Nile. He bled and conquered at Trafalgar. He
caught your gallant Nelson in his arms as he was
falling on the bloody deck, received his last breath,
and consigned his remains to the bosom of St. Paul's Ca-
thedral. -He has made England what she is—great and
powerful. Shall he not after all this be permitted to enjoy
the sunshine of home, with his wife and little ones, for a
single day ? He has perinea his life for England ;he has
returned from a five years' absence in distant seas—his wife
and children look with rapture upon his weather-beaten
countenance—he holds the loved ones in his embrace—but
the press-gang comes, and his fitful dream of happiness is
over. If he resists, there are fetters for his limbs ! If he
talks of England's proudly boasted common law, there is
no law for him. Magna Charta is a farce, and the Peti-
tion of Right a mockery, as far as he is concerned. Go,
sisters of England, to your Queen, to your Prime Minister,
your Parliament, and your Courts, and ask their interior-

......
once to arrest this moral and political iniquity, and you
will be told, " Woman should have no concern with poli-
tics—back to your drawing-rooms and' nurseries."
For another subject quite as fruitful of sympathy, I need
only refer you to the condition of Ireland, with its popula-
tion but recently starving for food, which was freely sup-
plied from our granaries, and at this moment craving mercy
from avaricious landlords, who, to extend the area of graz-
ing lands, are levelling their humble cottages to the ground,
and sending them forth to die upon the public highways.
Women of England I go thither with your tender chari-
ties. There, on the roadside, sinks an attenuated and
exhausted mother, still straining her perishing child to her
breast, while the unhappy husband and father, himself
foodless and raimentless, sheds drops of agony over the
heart-rending scene. Spare from the well-fed negroes of
these States one drop of your superabounding sympathy, to
pour into that bitter cup which is overrunning with sorrow
and with tears. Poor, suffering, down-trodden Ireland !
land of poetry and song, of noble feeling and generous emo-
tions—birthplace of the warrior, the statesman, the orator
—there is no room for you in the sympathising hearts of
the women of England. Let the Celtic race be driven by
starvation from the land of their fathers, and its exodus
would be regarded not with sorrow, but with joy and glad-
ness by the secret heart of England. " Religious tolera-
' tion" is but an unmeaning phrase with the people of Great
Britain—it extends not beyond the lips. A difference in
creed has been the death-blow to Ireland.

I reason not with you on the subject of our domestic in-
stitutions. Such as they are, they are ours. "We fear
the Greeks, though bearing presents." Never was adage
more applicable. Although professing friendship and sym-
pathy we cannot consent that England shall mix herself up
with our concerns. We prefer to work out our own destiny.
When she might have done so, she gave not relief. \Vo
asked her for bread, and she gave us a stone. The African,
under her policy, and by her laws, became property. That
property has descended from father to son, and constitutes
a large part of Southern wealth. We desire no intrusion
of advice as to our individual property rights, at home or
abroad. We meddle not with your laws of primogeniture
and entail, although they are obnoxious to all our notions
of justice and are in violation of the laws of nature. Would
the noble ladies of England feel no resentment if we should
address them upon those subjects? And, yet, is there a
certainty that our voice would not be heard by the toiling
and landless millions in favour of a system which we con-
sider more wise, more just, and more consistent with the
holy word of God ? We, however, preach no crusade
against aristocratic establishments. It is enough for us
that we do not allow them to exist among ourselves. We
are content to leave England in the enjoyment of her
peculiar institutions ; and we insist upon the right to
regulate ours without her aid. I pray you to bear in mind
that the golden rule of life is for each to attend to his
own business and let his neighbour's alone ! This means
peace, love, friendship. The opposite means hatred, ill-
will, contention ; it destroys the peace of neighbourhoods,
and is the fruitful cause of discord among nations. I must
also say to you frankly, that we regard England as an in-
different adviser on the subject of negro slavery. Her states-
manship, if it be judged by her course of policy in regard
to the West India Islands, would give her no exalted po-
sition, unless, indeed, fanaticism be a good adviser, and
ruin and desolation evidences of a wise and sound policy.
No, we prefer to follow our own conception of what it is
proper for us to do. Our eyes are turned across the ocean
not in the direction of England, but to Africa. The foot-
prints of our policy are seen in the colonies there estab-
blished, already become independent states—in the vglun-
tary emancipation of slaves by our citizens as preparatory
of emigration to Africa—a course of emancipation which,
from 1790 to 1850, has increased our table in Virginia, of
free negroes, in the ratio of 301 per cent., while the white
population has only increased 1021 per cent., and the slaves
but 64-it per cent. These interesting statistics I extract
from a memorial recently presented to the Legislature of
Virginia, asking additional aid to further the colonisation
of freed negroes in Liberia. Thus we seek to retribute the
wrongs done by England to Africa by returning civilisa-
tion for barbarism—Christianity for idolatry. We desire
no such boon as England bestowed on her islands—no
blight so abiding, no mildew so destructive—no ultimate
war between the races, bloody, desolating, and finally an-
nihilating. Steam is conquering distance, and Africa will
be brought nearer and nearer to our shores with each re-
volving year ; and the results of a pcdicy,at cnle9 wise and
tiiscreet, conimencipg with 018V011.01tling Virginia, and ox-