To behold 600,000 square miles of the best land in North America, teeming with slaves,--a surface greater, than that of many European kingdoms, held too by men who are constantly boasting of their love of liberty; sending up daily to Heaven, the sighs and groans of millions of broken hearts, while the sweat and tears and even the blood of thousands moisten its soil, must excite deep emotion in every breast, not dead to those feelings which become the patriot, or animate the Christian. But furthermore your committee are of opinion that if the scheme, of adding a large portion of Mexican territory, to our south-western border, should be consummated, the price of slaves will be so enhanced and the facilities of smuggling so much increased, that the African slave trade will be greatly augmented, as well as the practice of kidnapping in the more eastern parts of our own country. So that upon the whole, your committee are of opinion, that slavery is fearfully on the increase, and that every effort is making, by many of those interested in its continuance, to multiply its victims and extend its influence. This state of things calls loudly on every friend of his country, on every friend of man, to use every effort in his power, to arrest the torrent of misery and crime. Secondly. On the treatment of slaves,--your committee have long indulged an opinion which they believe is common with their fellow-citizens, that slaves in this country are somewhat better treated than formerly. This opinion seems to prevail to an extent which your committee fear, is not sustained by facts. A writer in Niles's Register for 1818, says, speaking on this subject, "The favourable change which has occurred in the treatment of negro slaves in this state (Maryland) since the revolution, must be to every benevolent mind a source of very agreeable reflections, our oldest citizens well remember when it was very customary to inflict on the manacled and naked person of the slave, the most intolerable punishments for very trivial offences. _Within the last twenty years_ it has been the practice to muster all the slaves on a farm once a week, and distribute to each his peck of corn, leaving him to walk several miles, to some neighbours hand mill, to grind it himself, under cover of night, when exhausted nature called for rest from the labours of the day; in many cases they received not an atom of animal food, and their usual bedding was a plank, or by particular kindness a single blanket." The above writer does not specify any particulars in which the improvement spoken of is apparent, but we think all will admit that a very considerable improvement might be accomplished, and yet the treatment might be such as could not be called _good_. He adds however that "much remains to be done, which the obligation of _humanity_ require."