business continues to be done here in tobacco; but
that trade is much on the decline.

8th Month, 14th.

I came to Richmond

, through
a country cultivated by black slaves; where, as
a matter of course, poverty and wretchedness
seem to abound. The different appearance of
those States, in which slaves are employed, when
compared with Pennsylvania and the other States
where slavery is not permitted, is truly astonishing.

8th Month, 15th.

I spent this day at Rich-
mond

. In the evening I walked to Manchester, over
the bridge at James's River which at this place is
nearly half a mile wide. From my own observations,
and the information I received from an inhabitant,
Richmond appears to be a place of great dissipa-
tion; chiefly arising from the loose and debauched
conduct of the white people with their black
female slaves. It sometimes happens here, as in
other places, that the white inhabitants, in selling
the offspring of these poor debased females, sell
their own sons and daughters, with as much indif-
ference as they would sell their cattle. By such
means, every tender sentiment of the human
breast is laid waste, and men become so degraded,
that their feelings rank but little above these of
the beasts of the field. In the treatment of their
offspring, how far do some of the brute creation
surpass them!