In South Carolina, if any free negro harbor, conceal, or entertain, any runaway slave, or a slave charged with _any_ criminal matter, he forfeits ten pounds for the first day, and twenty shillings for every succeeding day. In case of inability to pay, the free negro is sold at auction, and if any overplus remain, after the fines and attendant expenses are paid, it is put into the hands of the public treasurer. The free negro may entertain a slave without _knowing_ that he has done any thing wrong; but his declaration to that effect is of no avail. Where every effort is made to prevent colored people from obtaining any money, they are of course often unable to pay the penalties imposed. If any omission is made in the forms of emancipation established by law, _any person whatsoever_ may seize the negro so manumitted, and appropriate him to their own use. If a free colored person remain in Virginia twelve months after his manumission, he can be sold by the overseers of the poor for the benefit of the _literary fund_! In Georgia, a free colored man, except a regular articled seaman, is fined one hundred dollars for coming into the State; and if he cannot pay it, may be sold at public outcry. This act has been changed to one of increased severity. A free colored person cannot be a witness against a white man. They may therefore be robbed, assaulted, kidnapped and carried off with impunity; and even the legislatures of the old slave States adopt it as a maxim that it is very desirable to get rid of them. It is of no avail to _declare_ themselves free; the law _presumes_ them to be slaves, unless they can _prove_ to the contrary. In many instances written documents of freedom have been wrested from free colored people and destroyed by kidnappers. A lucrative internal slave-trade furnishes constant temptation to the commission of such crimes; and the _new_ States of Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, and the territories of Arkansas, and the Floridas, are not likely to be glutted for years to come. In Philadelphia, though remote from a slave market, it has been ascertained that _more than thirty_ free persons of color, were stolen and carried off within _two_ years. Stroud says: "Five of these have been restored to their friends, by the interposition of humane gentlemen, though not without great expense and difficulty. The others are still in bondage; and if rescued at all, it must be by sending _white_ witnesses a journey of more than a thousand miles." I know the names of four colored citizens of Massachusetts, who went to Georgia on board a vessel, were seized under the laws of that State, and sold as slaves. They have sent the most earnest exhortations to their families and friends to do something for their relief; but the attendant expenses require more money than the friends of negroes are apt to have, and the poor fellows as yet remain unassisted. A New-York paper, November, 1829, contains the following caution: