Note 19 — AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE.

Extract from the preamble to the first act passed by the legislature of Pennsylvania, for the gradual abolition of slavery in that state:

"Sect. 2. And whereas the condition of those persons who have heretofore been denominated negro and mulatto slaves, has been attended with circumstances which not only deprived them of the common blessings that they were by nature entitled to, but has cast them into the deepest afflictions by an unnatural separation of husband and wife from each other and from their children—an injury the greatness of which can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same unhappy case," &c.

Darwin, who may well be styled an arch connoisseur, both in physiology and morality, in his classification of human diseases, includes one which he denominates Nostalgia, and thus defines it:

"Nostalgia. An unconquerable desire of returning to one's native country, frequent in long voyages, in which the patients become so insane as to throw themselves into the sea, mistaking it for green fields and meadows. The Swiss are said to be particularly liable to this disease, and when taken into foreign service frequently desert from this cause, and especially after hearing or singing a particular tune, which was used in their village dances, in their native country; on which account their playing or singing this tune was punished with death. Zwingerus.

Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill, which lifts him to the storms. Goldsmith." Zoonomia, Cl. III. 1. 1. 6.

The late indefatigable Rush, in his Inquiry into the Causes of the Derangement of the Human Mind, states, that the slaves imported into the West Indies from Africa, frequently become distracted when they are about to commence the toils of perpetual slavery on the plantations.

N. B. This "indefatigable Rush" was, indeed, indefatigable in puffing himself off for a friend of humanity, in which he was pretty successful too. He made his court to the Quakers, and even exceeded some of them in cunning. It was as puny a creature, in point of talent, as ever contrived to get a reputation for wisdom. Principles he had none: he wrote about every thing, and about nothing well; but, as a pretender to humanity he was consummate. Only mind how he here calls for indignation against the "West India" planters. Not a word about those of his own "free country!" What a hypocrite! He was a Doctor of Physic; and he knew well that he would have lost his best patients, those that paid best for the blood-letting, (for which he was so famous) if he had made free with the Slave-holders of his own "free-country."—W. C.