at the
same time, of that counteracting licentiousness of intercourse,
of which the worst examples are to be traced where the African
trade, as in the West Indies, kept the number of females less
than of the males.

24. The annual expense of food and raiment in rearing a child may
be stated at about 8, 9, or 10 dollars; and the age at which it
begins to be gainful to its owner about 9 or 10 years.

25. The practice here does not furnish data for a comparison of
cheapness between these two modes of cultivation.

26. They are sometimes hired for field labour in time of harvest,
and on other particular occasions.

27. The examples are too few to have established any such
relative prices.

28. See the census.

29. Rather increases.

30. ----------

31. More closely with the slaves, and more likely to side with
them in a case of insurrection.

32. Generally idle and depraved; appearing to retain the bad
qualities of the slaves, with whom they continue to associate,
without acquiring any of the good ones of the whites, from whom
(they) continued separated by prejudices against their colour,
and other peculiarities.

33. There are occasional instances in the present legal condition
of leaving the State.

34. None.

35. ----------[13]

TO MISS FRANCES WRIGHT

MONTPELLIER, Sept. 1, 1825.

_Dear Madam_,--Your letter to Mrs. Madison, containing
observations addressed to my attention also, came duly to hand,
as you will learn from her, with a printed copy of your plan for
the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States.

The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so
universally acknowledged, that no merit could be greater than
that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it. Unfortunately the
task, not easy under other circumstances, is vastly augmented by
the physical peculiarities[14] of those held in bondage, which
preclude their incorporation with the white population; and by
the blank in the general field of labour to be occasioned by
their exile; a blank into which there would not be an influx of
white labourers, successively taking the place of the exiles, and
which, without such an influx, would have an effect distre