[26] I have been assured by a gentleman of the highest respectability, that a former representative to Congress, from one of the southern states, acknowledged to him, that he held a mulatto man as a slave, having purchased him in company with slaves, who affirmed that he was free born, and had been kidnapped from one of the New England states; who was well educated, and who, he had no doubt, was born as free a man as himself, or my informant. Upon being asked, how he could _bear_ then to retain him, he replied, that the customs of his part of the country were such, that these things are not minded much. [27] I was informed that the mulatto man was probably destined for the New-Orleans market, not very far distant from the _Gulf of Mexico_, which probably embraces more personal slavery, including its neighbouring regions, than any region of equal extent on the globe. [28] On the ensuing day, having persevered in endeavours to secure the captives, the son of this landlord (to whom I presume _manacles_, _hand-cuffs_, _iron man-fetters_, _hopples_ _&c._ are as familiar as steel-traps and snares to the hunter of the _animals which yield fur_,) expressed his sympathy for the loss of the purchaser of the mulatto man, (who still remained in his chains,) should he be set at liberty. I asked him whether he considered it worse for the trader to lose a few hundred dollars in money, than for the mulatto man to be transported to a strange country, and be deprived of his liberty for life. To which he replied, after a short pause, _that he did not know as there was much difference_! I assured him, that if he _did not_, I was _sorry_ for him. This illustrates the invincible force of morbid education and of habit. [29] By information, derived from distinct and corresponding sources, a few days after this caravan left Washington, there is no doubt of the fact, that it contained, in addition to the slaves, a young black woman, who had been emancipated in Delaware, and was sold by the same person as an agent, that assisted in seizing and sold the black woman and child; and also a legally free mulatto man, in irons, who had been sold in the night by his employer, near Philadelphia, and who was most unmercifully beaten with a club, on the night previous to their arrival in the city, for telling a person that he was free. [30] Additional aid was also rendered by the Abolition Society at Wilmington. [31] It would be equally as absurd to do this, as it would to import 2,000,000 prisoners of war from Turkey or China, and make citizens of them. [32] "It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to know, that all are the work of an Almighty Hand." [From the first section of the Preamble to the Pennsylvania act for the Abolition of Slavery, before referred to.]