Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/128

 21st.—I was formally introduced to Dr. Beattie of George-town, the young sprightly eloquent orator at the city forum, where he shines a public defender of duelling. My reverend heterodox friend joined us, and contended that the blacks have no claim to a common origin from our father Adam; the form and construction of their bones and the difference of their colour, constituting so complete a contrast with all other nations, are held to be positive proofs that they spring from some {112} other and inferior source. This doctrine is very palatable to America. I regret that it should be espoused by an Englishman. White men here sell their own yellow children in the ordinary course of business; and free blacks also sell their immediate offspring, male and female.

Called on my townsfolk, Jack Bellcare and his wife; both are disappointed; she would not have left Sutton, could she have counted the cost and sorrow of it, although they are getting a living, and have disposed of their children. She keeps a little store; he works and drinks heartily, but has not yet spent all their Sutton money; Jack left a comfortable home and dairy behind him, and now works bare-headed on the road, cursing the hot climate.

Almost every private family chariot in this city is found daily on the stand as a hackney coach for hire, to either whites or blacks; to all who can pay.

22d.—I heard this evening America's unequalled preacher, Dr. Storton of Philadelphia. He has one unpardonable sin; he is an Englishman, a refugee from the church of the late Reverend Samuel Pearce of Birmingham. He preaches well, and prays earnestly and eloquently, and that too, for all white men, and red men, and black men in Africa, but not for the poor negroes of North America, who are here quite forgotten by the priests, {113}