The total number of slaves in Maryland, according to the last census, amounted to 89,405. At $250 apiece,--which is but about half the value commonly assigned to southern slaves by southern men,--this would be $22,373,750. Allowing $30 each for transportation to Liberia, without any provision for them after their arrival there, the whole sum would be $25,058,600,--in round numbers, twenty-five millions of dollars! more than a million and a quarter in each year, and about thirty-five hundred dollars per day. I had not supposed the abolitionists had such resources at their command! I have dwelt thus long upon Mr. Webster’s speech, because in connection with his two votes in favor of Mr. Foote’s committee of compromise, which votes, had they been the other way, would have utterly defeated the committee, it is considered to have done more to jeopard the great cause of freedom in the territories, than any other event of this disastrous session. I have spoken of Mr. Webster by name, and, I trust, in none but respectful terms. I might have introduced other names, or examined his positions without mentioning him. I have taken what seemed to me the more manly course; and if these views should ever by chance fall under his eye, I believe he has magnanimity enough to respect me the more for the frankness I have used. If I am wrong, I will not add to an error of judgment the meanness of a clandestine attack. If I am right, no one can complain; for we must all bow before the majesty of truth. I have now noticed the principal events which have taken place in Congress, and which have led to what military men would call the “demoralization” of many of the rank and file of its members. Some recent movements have brought vividly to mind certain historical recollections in regard to the African slave trade, now execrated by all civilized nations. When the immortal Wilberforce exposed to public gaze the secrets of that horrid traffic, his biographer says, “The first burst of generous indignation promised nothing less than the instant abolition of the trade, but _mercantile_ jealousy had taken the alarm, and the defenders of the West India system found themselves strengthened by the independent alliance of _commercial_ men.”--_Life of Wilberforce_, vol. i. p. 291. Again; opposition to Wilberforce’s motion “arose amongst the Guinea _merchants_,”--“reënforced, however, before long by the great body of West India planters.”--_Ibid._ The corporation of Liverpool spent, first and last, upwards of £10,000 in defence of a traffic which even the gravity and calmness of judicial decisions have since pronounced “infernal.” “Besides printing works in defence of the slave trade and remunerating their authors; paying the expenses of delegates to attend in London and watch Mr. Wilberforce’s proceedings, they pensioned the widows of Norris and Green, and voted plate to Mr. Penny, for their exertions in this cause.”--_Ibid._ p. 345.