on what the morrow may
bring forth!

This was the first glance I had been allowed of the Virginian
agricultural slave, and I was not ill pleased to be presented with the
bright side of a condition which, to the mind of the philanthropist of
every land, is sufficiently painful without the exaggerations of the
political quack, or the fanatic outcry of the sectarian bigot seeking to
preach a crusade of extermination against men whose slaves form their
only inheritance, himself meantime, for the most selfish ends, daily
planning how best to enslave the mental part of those whose credulity
and weakness expose them for a prey.

There are few proprietors, at this day, more to be pitied than the
large planters of Virginia and the Carolinas; as high-spirited, generous
a race as may anywhere be encountered, but much weighed down of late by
the pressure of circumstances which they cannot control, and which every
year threatens to render more heavy, unless, through some miraculous
interposition, the growing causes be removed or checked. The very slave
property, for the inherited possession of which they are abused, is
becoming in many cases a burthen. Their more southern rivals can grow
cheaper, and, having a fresher soil, produce larger crops and outsell
them in the market; whilst, with a slave population, they have no chance
of ever becoming manufacturers.

From City-point, a well-horsed coach took us fourteen miles, under two
hours, to the busy little city of St. Petersburg; where, over a cup of
tea, and a good Virginy coal fire, I reviewed this journey of a couple
of days, which had afforded me many subjects for admiration and
reflection. I smoked my cigar, and, at an early hour, retired to my bed,
of which I had a choice, there being three in the room, although, at
this time, exclusively appropriated to me. I soon was fast asleep,
dreaming confusedly of Captain Smith, Pocahontas, Lord Cornwallis, Queen
Elizabeth, Powhatan, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir George Cockburn.

IMPRESSIONS OF PETERSBURG.

VIRGINIA.

"And here I am," said I to myself, on waking, and finding the high sun
dancing the hays over the floor, as his beams stole in through the
_jalousies_ of my windows.

"Here I am in Virginia, the scene of so much suffering and so much
gallantry,--the Eldorado of Raleigh, the refuge of the Cavalier, and the
birth-place of George Washington."

After walking through the little city, I next betook me to the ba