The Sun.
London, England, 1840-09-29 00:00:00

this moment be in possession of landed property wore
very little short of a million sterling, which is for ev,.
alienated from his family. Nothing could more forcibly
illustrate the different consequences flowing from provi-
dence and improvidence than the fact, that a part of the
same estate of Aston Hall was purchased by Mr.
Whitehead, banker of Warwick, and from its proximity
to Birmingham, it is likely to become a property of
great value.

Why do we refer to those circumstances ? Because
they are, even in this naked sketch, pregnant with in-
struction. A great London bank has stopped piyment,
holding deposits which are stated to amount to
650,0001., and having promissory notes circulating in
all parts of the Continent of Europe amounting to a
very considerable sum ; and, as we believe, it is brought
to this state, not from any misconduct on the part of
the late possessor and director of the office, as far as
the management of the funds entrusted to him is con-
cerned, but from the misconduct of those who preceded
him. Mr. Hugh Hammerslev inherited a lucrative bu-
siness, encumbered with dreadful losses. A long course
of years might have brought about solvency, and laid
a solid foundation of wealth. We are bound to explain
these things, and to trace the evil to its sources.
These sources are mainly-
1. A loss on Mr. T. Hammereley's leav-
ing the firm of Morland, say
2. A loss with the Honiton Bank, which
we put down ...... 160,000
3. A loss in the Soap Factory

£260,000

We believe that under the management of the late
Mr. Hugh Hammersley this large sum was in the
course of gradual liquidation from regularly accruing
profits. There is no doubt that a very valuable de-
scription of business had been attracted to the office,.
and we believe if the disaster had occurred a few
years sooner, the creditors would have received a
smaller dividend—the assets being new stated to be
equal to the payment of about 1.55. in the pound.
The rapid sliding away of property from opening the
sluice of improvident confidence, and the slow recovery
of it by care and circumspection—for a quarter of a cen-
tury has elapsed since any of the losses here stated were
incurred—are notable facts worthy of the consideration
of all bankers and merchants.

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED

STATES.

A pamphlet has just issued from the press, entitled
American Churches the Bulwark of American Slavery,
by our now well-known and highly esteemed friend, Mr.
Birney. The matter is so important, and a prompt and
extensive circulation of it so desirable, that we have
inserted the whole of it in our impression of this day.

The extent to which most of the churches in Ame-
rica are involved in the guilt of supporting the slave
system is known to but few in this country. So far
from being even suspected by the great mass of the re-
ligious community here, it would not be believed but on
the most indisputable evidence. Evidence of this cha-
racter it is now proposed to present—applying to the
Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and
the Protestant Episcopal Churches. It is done with a
single view to make the British Christian public ac-
crlainted with the real state of the case—in order that
it may, in the most intelligent manner possible, exert
whatever influence it possesses with the American
Churches to persuade them to purify themselves from a
sin that is fast bringing them under its dominion, and
that threatens in the end wholly to destroy them.—Anta-
Slavery Reporter.
The following are extracts from the work :
Of the twenty-six American States, thirteen arc
slave States. Of the latter, Maryland, Virginia, Ken-
tucky, Missouri, and Tennessee (in part), are slave-
selling States ; the States south of them are slave-
buying and slave-consuming States.

Between the slave-selling and slave-buying States,
the slave-trade is carried on extensively and systemati-
cally. The slave-trader, on completing his purchases
for a single adventure, brings the gang together at a
convenient point ; confines the men in double rows to a
large chain running between the rows, by means of
smaller lateral chains tightly riv etted around the wrists
of the slaves, and connected with the principal chain.
They are in this way driven along the highways (the
small boys, the women, and girls following), without
any release from their chains till they arrive at their
ultimate place of sale. Here they occupy barracoons
till they are disposed of one by one, or in lots, to those
who will give mcst for them.
Ministers and office-bearers, and members oP churches
are slave-holders—buying and selling slaves (not as the
regular slave trader), but as their convenience or inte-
rest may from time to time require. As a general rule,
the itinerant preachers in the Methodist church are not
permitted to hold slaves—but there are frequent excep-
tions.

There are, in the United States, about 2,700,000
slaves. and 400,000 free people of colour. Of the slaves,
80,000 are members of the Methodist church ; 80,000
of the Baptist ; and about 40,000 of other churches.
These church members have no exemption from being
sold just as other slaves are. Instances occur in which

slave-holding members of churches sell slaves who are
members of the same church with themselves. And
members of churches have been slave-auctioneers.

In the slave states a slave cannot be a witness in any
case, civil or criminal, in which a white is a party.
Neither can a free-coloured person, except in Loui-

siani. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (free states) make co-
loured persons incompetent as witnesses in any case
in which a white is a party. In Ohio, a white person can

prove his own(" book") account not exceeding a certain
sum, by his own oath of affirmation. A coloured person
cannot, as against a white. In Ohio the laws regard
all who are mulattoes, or above the grade of mulattoes,

as white.

There is no law in the slave States forbidding the
several church authorities making slave-holding an of-
fence, for which those guilty of it might be excluded
from membership.
The Society of Friends exists in the slave-states—it
excludes slave-holders.

The slave States make it penal to teach the slaves to
read. So also some of them, to teach the free coloured

people to read. None of the slave-holding churches, or
religious bodies, so far as is known, have, at any time,
remonstrated with the Legislatures against this ini-
quitous legislation, or petitioned for its repeal or modi-
fication. Nor have they reproved or questioned such
of their members, as, being also Members of the Legis-
atures, sanctioned such legislation by their votes.
The " house-servants" are rarely present at family-
worship ; the " field-hands," never.
It is only one here and there that seems to have in-
telligent views of the nature of Christianity, or of a
future life.

In the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Epis
copal churches, the coloured people, during service, sit
in a particular part of the house, now generally known
as the negro pew. They are not permitted to sit in
any other, nor to hire or purchase pews as other peo-
ple, nor would they he permitted to sit, even if in-
vited to do so, in the pews of white persons. This ap-
plies to all adorned persons, whether members or not,
and even to licensed ministers of their respective con-
nexions. The " negro pew" is almost as rigidly kept up
in the free states as in the slave.
In some of the older slave States, as Virginia and
South Carolina, Churches, in their corporate character,
hold slaves, who are generally hired out for the support
of the minister. The following is taken from the
tharleston Courier, of Feb. 12, 1835 :
Field Negroes, by Thomas Gadsden.—On Tuesday,
the 17th instant, be sold at the north of the Ex-
change, at ten o'clock, a prime gang of ten negroes,
accustomed to the culture of cotton and provisions, be-
longing to the Independent Church, is Christ's Church
Psrish.—Feb. 6.
Chancellor Harper, of South Carolina.—lt is the lar-
der of nature and of God, that the being of superior fa-
culties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power,
should control and dispose of those who are inferior.
It is as much in the order of nature, that men should
enslave each other, as that other animals should prey
upon each other.
Augusta (Geo.) Chronicle.—" He [Ames Dresser]
should have been hung up as high as Haman, to rot
upon the gibbet, until the wind whistled through his
bones. The cry of the whole south should be death,
INSTANT DEATH, to the abolitionist, wherever he is
caught."
[Amos Dresser, now a missionary in Jamaica, was a
theological student at Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati.
In the vacation (Augusta 1835) he undertook to
sell
Bibles in the state of Tennessee, with the view to raise
means to continue his studies. Whilst aise
means
there,
he fell
under suspicion of being an abolitionist, was
arrested by the V Committee, igilance whilst
a religious meeting in the neighbourhood of Nashville,
the capital of the State, and after an afternoon and even-
ing's inquisition condemned to receive twenty lashes
on his naked body. The sentenceo,clook was executed on him,
between eleven and twelse on Saturday night.]
Sentiments of Presbyteries and Syncds.—Although
many of the influential P
especially in the yterien Ministers in the
free states, cities and large towns, have
shown themselves ready dy to second the slave-holding
laymen ministers andin their opposition to abo-
litionism, from some cause it has happened that
the free-state Presbyteries and Synods, have not
ns
committed themselves , directly on the question.
They have
.attempted to stay the progress of abo-
i ittionism, by resolutions bearing on it indirectly, but
well understood by those who were to act under them
t as intended to exclude, as far as was safe, the question