be influenced by various
causes. Among these are: 1. The ordinary price of food, on which
the quality and quantity allowed them will more or less depend.
This cause has operated much more unfavorably against them in
some quarters than in Virginia. 2. The kinds of labour to be
performed, of which the sugar and rice plantations afford
elsewhere, and not here, unfavorable examples. 3. The national
spirit of their masters, which has been graduated by philosophic
writers among the slaveholding Colonies of Europe. 4. The
circumstance of conformity or difference in the physical
characters of the two classes; such a difference cannot but have
a material influence, and is common to all the slaveholding
countries within the American hemisphere. Even in those where
there are other than black slaves, as Indians and mixed breeds,
there is a difference of colour not without its influence. 5. The
proportion which the slaves bear to the free part of the
community, and especially the greater or smaller numbers in which
they belong to individuals.

This last is, perhaps, the most powerful of all the causes
deteriorating the condition of the slave, and furnishes the best
scale for determining the degree of its hardship.

In reference to the actual condition of slaves in Virginia, it
may be confidently stated as better, beyond comparison, than it
was before the Revolution. The improvement strikes every one who
witnessed their former condition, and attends to their present.
They are better fed, better clad, better lodged, and better
treated in every respect; insomuch, that what was formerly deemed
a moderate treatment, would now be a rigid one, and what formerly
a rigid one, would now be denounced by the public feelings. With
respect to the great article of food particularly, it is a common
remark among those who have visited Europe, that it includes a
much greater proportion of the animal ingredient than is
attainable by the free labourers even in that quarter of the
Globe. As the two great causes of the melioration in the lot of
the slaves since the establishment of our Independence, I should
set down: 1. The sensibility to human rights, and sympathy with
human sufferings, excited and cherished by the discussions
preceding, and the spirit of the Institut