WM. COBBETT. _Kensington, 18 Sept. 1821._ AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 11. Many schemes have been proposed for alleviating the miseries and evils produced by the enslavement of the African race in the United States. Possessors of slaves, as well as others, have investigated the subject with great industry and anxiety; and all agree that something ought to be done. The suggestion of an infallible remedy is useless, if it be impossible to attain or apply it. Exportation to Africa, (the country to which the wisdom of their Creator has adapted their colour and faculties;) separate colonization on the public lands; employment on national canals, roads, &c. have been recommended. These projects are most certainly impracticable, except partially:--because their completion would require the _voluntary_ estrangement by its legal holders, of an immense quantity and value of what is generally though erroneously termed _property_--human liberty.[1] And in the present moral and intellectual condition of the slaves, the result would be perhaps of doubtful benefit. 12. In examining this subject, I shall endeavour to be temperate, and to avoid indulging in the use of reprehensive acrimonious modes of expression. 13. Without the most distant inclination to aggravate the feelings of any individual, but because "we ought not to shrink from the investigation of truth, however unpopular, nor conceal it whatever the profession of it may cost,"[2] a concise sketch will be presented, of the facts and incidents which have prompted this address. The peculiar connexion with which some of these occurrences succeeded each other, was certainly extraordinary, and to those who are not incredulous, may seem astonishing. 14. The first opportunity that ever occurred to me, of viewing a slave plantation, was furnished by a journey during the summer of 1815, from Pittsburg to the city of Washington. In the course of my route I travelled through part of Virginia, west of the Blue Ridge, by way of Winchester, and through part of Maryland by way of Fredericktown, on the east side.