. Yet it has forced a reduction of the British duty
on sugar. Who can estimate the consequences that must follow the
annihilation of the cotton crop of the slaveholding States? I do not
undervalue the importance of other articles of commerce, but no calamity
could befall the world at all comparable to the sudden loss of two
millions of bales of cotton annually. From the deserts of Africa to the
Siberian wilds--from Greenland to the Chinese wall,--there is not a spot
of earth but would feel the sensation. The factories of Europe would
fall with a concussion that would shake down castles, palaces, and even
thrones; while the "purse-proud, elbowing insolence" of our Northern
monopolist would soon disappear forever under the smooth speech of the
pedlar, scourging our frontiers for a livelihood, or the bluff vulgarity
of the South Sea whaler, following the harpoon amid storms and shoals.
Doubtless the abolitionists think we could grow cotton without slaves,
or that at worst the reduction of the crop would be moderate and
temporary. Such gross delusions show how profoundly ignorant they are of
our condition here.

You declare that "the character of the people of the South has long been
that of _hardened infidels_, who fear not God, and have no regard for
religion." I will not repeat what I said in my former letter on this
point. I only notice it to ask you how you could possibly reconcile it
to your profession of a Christian spirit, to make such a malicious
charge--to defile your soul with such a calumny against an unoffending
people?

"You are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine. You should be ruled and led
By some discretion."

May God forgive you.

Akin to this, is the wanton and furious assault made on us by Mr.
Macaulay, in his late speech on the sugar duties, in the House of
Commons, which has just reached me. His denunciations are wholly without
measure, and, among other things, he asserts "that slavery in the United
States wears its worst form; that, boasting of our civilization and
freedom, and frequenting Christian churches, we breed up slaves, nay,
beget children for slaves, and sell them at so much a-head." Mr.
Macaulay is a reviewer, and he knows that he is "nothing if not
critical." The practice of his trade has given him the command of all
the slashing and vituperative phrases of our language, and the turn of
his mind l