In the course of these visits I was present at some angry altercations;
one of these referred to the recent visit of an individual who was
termed by the disputants an "incendiary abolitionist," and who, it
appeared, had been detected in the act of distributing tracts, which had
been published at Salem, in Massachusetts, exposing the disabilities the
African race were labouring under. Extracts from one of these tracts
were read, and appeared very much to increase the violence of the
contending parties, one of whom insisted that the publication contained
nothing but what might be read by every slave in the sacred Scriptures,
and that, therefore, it could not be classed as dangerous, although he
admitted that it contained notions of "human rights" that were
calculated to imbue the mind of the "niggers" with unbecoming ideas.
These sentiments did not at all accord with those of the company, and
several expressions of doubt as to the soundness of the speaker's own
pro-slavery principles, together with the increasing excitement, caused
him to withdraw from the contest.
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