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Travels in Some Parts of North America, in the Years 1804, 1805, & 1806, by Robert Sutcliff

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business continues to be done here in tobacco; but that trade is much on the decline. 8th Month, 14th. I came to Richmond, through a country cultivated by black slaves; where, as a matter of course, poverty and wretchedness seem to abound. The different appearance of those States, in which slaves are employed, when compared with Pennsylvania and the other States where slavery is not permitted, is truly astonishing. 8th Month, 15th. I spent this day at Rich- mond. In the evening I walked to Manchester, over the bridge at James's River which at this place is nearly half a mile wide. From my own observations, and the information I received from an inhabitant, Richmond appears to be a place of great dissipa- tion; chiefly arising from the loose and debauched conduct of the white people with their black female slaves. It sometimes happens here, as in other places, that the white inhabitants, in selling the offspring of these poor debased females, sell their own sons and daughters, with as much indif-ference as they would sell their cattle. By such means, every tender sentiment of the human breast is laid waste, and men become so degraded, that their feelings rank but little above these of the beasts of the field. In the treatment of their offspring, how far do some of the brute creation surpass them!