Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/37

27 increases very little, and one third of it, as well as in Virginia and Maryland, is composed of negroes and mulattoes, nearly all slaves. The whites appear rather to diminish than to increase in these states; which must be attributed to their use of strong drinks, and to a life of voluptuous excesses. Despising matrimony, they commonly unite themselves with the negresses and mulattresses. They are but little inclined to labour, presumptuous, vindictive, and cruel to their slaves. The inhabitants of the States of the North are more laborious, and less corrupt. Those of Delaware, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, are poor; and, with the exception of Delaware, they all resemble the savages, or aboriginal Indians, very much, in their customs and mode of living. They are much addicted to the chace, and make their excursions like the Indians, generally on horseback, and with a musket. Of late years they have been constantly emigrating, principally to the territories of Louisiana, and others usurped from Spain in the Floridas, provinces of Tehas,