they were treated better by the planters than was the case ten years
ago. He also admitted the evils of the system, and said, with apparent
sincerity, he wished it was put an end to.

We went afterwards to the city jail, to see a youth whose case I had
heard of in Delaware, who had come to Alexandria on board a vessel, and
had here been seized and imprisoned on suspicion of being a slave, not
having any document to prove his freedom. He had now been incarcerated
for near twelve months, and though admitted by the jailer and every one
else to be free, he was about to be sold in a few days into slavery for
a term, in order to pay the jail-fees, amounting to eighty dollars. In
the evening on returning to Washington, we paid a visit by appointment
to John Quincy Adams, ex-president of the United States; who though
considerably more than seventy years of age, is yet one of the most
assiduous and energetic members of the House of Representatives, and one
of the most influential public men of the day. To this must be added the
far higher praise that his distinguished powers are employed in the
service of humanity, truth, and justice. How rare is it to witness such
a union of intellectual and moral greatness! Posterity will do justice
to his fame, when slavery shall exist only in the records of the past,
and when it shall be related with wonder, that this venerable man,
standing almost alone in his defence of the right of petition, received
daily anonymous letters threatening him with assassination. He received
us very kindly, and in the course of conversation expressed how much
importance he attached to the late repeal of the "nine months law," in
the State of New York, as a favorable indication of the current of
public feeling. He did not appear sanguinely to anticipate that he
should be in a majority on his pending motion for the repeal of the
"gag."