Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/178

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164
A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

Liberia. These manumissions have occurred on a scale that the most sanguine friends of the cause could not have anticipated. Entire families have been blest with their freedom, from the most pure motives, a conviction of the immorality and injustice of slavery; and in most cases ample provision has been made for the expense of their passage, and in some, for their support also, in Liberia."

We will now adduce some particular instances of this generous conduct on the part of slave-owners, which will show distinctly the manner in which the simple existence of such a place of refuge as Liberia operates in favour of emancipation.

"Colonel, Smith, an old Revolutionary officer of Sussex County, Virginia, ordered in his will, that all his slaves, seventy or eighty in number, should be emancipated; and bequeathed above 5,000 dollars, to defray the expense of transporting them to Liberia. Patsey Morris, of Louisa County, Virginia, directed by will that all her slaves, sixteen in number, should be emancipated, and left 500 dollars to fit them out, and defray the expense of their passage. Dr. Bradley, of Georgia, left forty-nine slaves free, on condition of their removal to Liberia. A gentleman in North Carolina, last year, gave freedom to all his slaves, fourteen in number, and provided 20 dollars each, to pay their passage to Liberia. William Fitzhugh bequeathed freedom to all his slaves, after a certain fixed period, and ordered that their expenses should be paid to whatsoever place they should think proper to go; and as an encouragement to them to emigrate to the American colony on the coast of Africa, "where,"