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The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out-an obstinate disease of the eyes-contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves, (only half a wine glass per day being allowed to an individual,) and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally; but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, of being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several, who were stopped in the attempt, to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The disease extended to the crew; and one after another was smitten with it, until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition did not preclude calculation: to save the expense of supporting slaves rendered unsaleable, and to obtain grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirty-six of the negroes, having become blind, were thrown into the sea and drowned!

In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual, whose sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon. The same disease had been there; and, horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted. The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its arrival-Speech of M. Benjamin Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820.

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"THE ONE IDEA."

BY SARAH JANE CLARKE.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Our glorious one Idea!

From the source of life it came, And it shineth far and mounteth high, An ever living flame.

Then let it burn! what mortal hand Its fiery wing shall bind?

For it hath reached the moral wastes, The prairies of the mind!

It sweepeth off the wild, rank growth Of prejudice and wrong,

As, fanned by mighty viewless wings,
It rolls and leaps along!

Our men are men of "One Idea!"
Ah, thou must elsewhere turn
For gloomy and unsocial churls,
Ascetics hard and stern

For pilgrims toiling on to pay

Their cold reluctant vows-
For prophets, in woe's sackcloth clad,
And dust upon their brows.

Thus come our band-impassioned zeal
Lights their uncowering eyes,
And on their brows a cheerful faith
Like Heaven's own sunshine lies!

Their father's glory, as an Ark,

Moving in light before themThe promises of Freedom's God,

As rainbows bending o'er them!

Their foes, like pirates half o'ercome,
Stand fierce and stern at bay,
Or like a sullen convict gang,

Go scowling on their way;

But as to some high festival,

Our glad band sweeps alongAnd now rings out a joyous laugh, And now peels out a song!

Their steeps keep time to freedom's march, Sounding within the soul,

And high, and broad, and startling truths
Their daring hands unroll,

And rear with bold, exulting shouts,
Aloft in freedom's air,

Till they float before a gazing world
As glorious banners, there!

Our wives, our girls, of "One Idea!"
In each devoted mind

It dwells in beauty and in power,

Like a deity enshrined.

They are no slavish devotees,
Cloistered in gloom and night,
Their life is like a morn in May,

Flowers, dew, and warm sunlight:
The flowers of good and modest deeds,
The dew of generous love,

The sunlight of that perfect peace

Which cometh from above.

They have that strong, brave, soaring hope
Which true-soul freedom brings,
That earnest, fearless, fervent faith,
In all good, blessed things!

That beautiful, impassioned love,
That worship of the truth,
That flings around their fleeting years,
Immortal bloom and youth.

So far beneath their lofty gaze

Rank's vain distinctions lie,

They could stand before a crowned queen
And look her in the eye,-

Then turn, and smile on honest worth,
Though Monarchs on it frowned-
And bow to royal intellect,
Though by the world uncrowned.

And yet no stern Zenobias,

No maids of Orleans they,
Ye seek in vain their gentle forms
Amid the stormy fray;

But once name Freedom's holy war
A crusade mad and vain,

And dare to sneer at human rights,
As phantoms of the brain-

Then cringe beneath each lightning glance
Their proud eyes on thee fling,

As in their souls the "One Idea"
Unfurls its flashing wing!

Now blessed Father of us all,
God of the bond and free!
Regard in mercy still our foes,
The foes of liberty!

Lead them from error's labyrinth,
To tread the paths of right-
Pour on their poor benighted minds,
Truth's clear and perfect light!

Oh! break upon the sleep of death

That wraps their moral powers-
Breathe in them as a living soul,
This One Idea" of ours!

MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk, (Va.) in reference to GEORGE JATIMER, the alleged fugitive slave, the result of whose case in Massachusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro SOMERSET in England, in 1772.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

The blast from Freedom's northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia, from Massachusetts Bay:

No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,

Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horseman's steel.

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go

Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;

And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,

A thousand sails of Commerce swell, but none are spread for War.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high
Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky;
Yet, not one brown, hard hand forgoes its honest labor here;
No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's bank,
Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank;

Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the hearts which man
The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape-Ann.

The cold North light, and wintry sun glare on their icy forms,
Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms;
Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,
They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day
When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array?
How side by side, with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men
Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then?

Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call

Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall?
When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath
Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of "LIBERTY OR DEATH!"

What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved
False to their father's memory-false to the faith they loved,
If she can scoff at Freedom, and its Great Charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from Truth and Duty turn?

We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell--

Our voices, at your bidding, take up the blood-hounds' yell-
We gather, at your summons, above our father's graves,
From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!

Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow,

The spirit of her early time is with her even now;

Dream not because her pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool,
She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!

All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may,

Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day;

But that one dark loathsome burden, ye must stagger with alone,
And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown!

Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair; Cling closer to the cleaving curse' that writes upon your plains,

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The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains.

Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old,

By watching round the shambles where human flesh is sold-
Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count his market value, when
The maddened mother's cry of woe shall pierce the slaver's den!

Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginian name;

Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame;
Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair universe-

We wash our hands forever, of your sin, and shame, and curse,

A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been, Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men; The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still

In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.

And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey
Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of grey,

How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke;
How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke!

A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high,

A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply;

Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang, And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang.

The voice of free, broad Middlesex-of thousands as of one-
The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lexington-
From Norfolk's ancient villages; from Plymouth's rocky bound
To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close her round;

From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose
Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua flows,
To where Wachusett's wintry blasts the mountain larches stir,
Swelled up to heaven the thrilling cry of God save Latimer!'

And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray-
And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay!
Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill,
And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill.

The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters

Deep calling unto deep aloud-the sound of many waters!
Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand?
No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land!

Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne,
In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn;
You've spurned our kindest counsels-you've hunted for our lives-
And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves!

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