MY DEAR SIR:— We are compelled, just because the issue is forced upon us by our enemies, in defending our claim to equality, to compare the negro with the Anglo-Saxon race. Indeed, it is the Anglo-Saxon race alone—or rather the Yankee half of it—that denies the equality of the negro. As a matter of fact, the Anglo Saxon race thinks itself superior to all others; but I think the American branch of that race go the farthest in claiming that superiority distinctly.

There are two points, however, of which, I think, that claim must be yielded up by the English. I mean the art of conducting a war, and general education. Touching the latter, I send you Sir John Pakington's speech, on the House of Commons, on Friday last. Whence you will learn that the mass of the children of this half of the Anglo Saxon race, are growing up as did their parrents quite as ignorant as any portion of our race. On the former, you have but to read the testimony before the Parliamentary Committee, in regard to our army before Sevastopol and you will see that the English system of conducting a war is far inferior to that of the French, and not one wit better than that which ruined the army and blasted the hopes of the negro Hannibal centuries ago.

I am sorry that I cannot say, I think your half of the boasting race are any better, for in the South there are three millions and a half of poor whites as ignorant as our peasantry; and as for the American system of warfare, we shall better know whether it is or is not, better than the English, when it shall have been tried upon some first rate military power, without foreign and negro aid; and when it shall cease to be true, that it has made its most brilliant displays in tormenting savage Indians, butchering some barbarous Mexicans, bombarding Greytown and filli-bustering in the central Atlantic.

As to our comparison with our disparagers, it is a little singular that the question should be so nearly confined to the American continent. Nay, more, that those who disparage us most, are of the same origin with those on this side of the Atlantic; still more, that a great number of our present enemies in the Western World, were friendly enough when they lived here. How shall this be accounted for? Is it that the negro does not improve upon acquaintance? I think not.—For, on this side, these who know most of the negro, who have been in the West Indies and in Africa are his best friends. Is it because the Americans are nationally or habitually prouder than the English? That could not possibly be. The English are the proudest people under the sun. Besides, our best friends on both sides are among the proudest of the proud. It is because of any particular natural antipathy betwixt whites and blacks? No, for that does not show fault among the majority of whites or blacks outside of America. Is it because of slavery?

I think not; for in the United States there are no more slaves than in Brazil, where the same feeling is not nearly so prevalent. Nor is a feeling so strong against negroes in Cuba, Porto Rico, the Dutch, or the Portuguese possessions, where negroes are enslaved. Indeed, of the nine millions of the negro race enslaved, but about three and a half millions are in that condition in the United States—And of the fourteen millions on and near the American continent, but about four millions are slaves, it is not true, therefore, that whosoever sees a negro, sees one of a race, a majority of whom are slaves. Besides, the negro race, in the British and French possessions, are all free, and yet it is undeniable that negro hate, to an almost fiendish degree, is to be found in Canada and Nova Scotia. The soft pated Sam Slick, Judge Haliburton defended it on an English platform, in the presence of such of his superiors as Lord Shaftonsbury, Lord Harrowly, Lord R. Grosvenor, Lord Radstock, the Hon Captain Denman, &c, &. I find no explanation of the prevalent negro disparagement, which I fear abounds much more on our naive continent, than in perdition itself, in any the things I have named. Moreover, the negro race in and out of Africa, comprises some one hundred and sixty-four millions. Now, of these but nine millions, all told, are slaves—a negro and a slave are, therefore, very far from being synonymous. And you are aware, that in states and provinces, where no slavery exists, you frequently find this feeling most abundant. And then, it puts on some of the most foolish airs. For instance, a negro can have a first class railway ticket from New York to Philadelphia, but from Philadelphia to New York, he can have nothing better than a negro ticket—second class —on the very same line! Yet, he can get a first class ticket from Philadelphia to Newark, within seven miles of New York, and from Newark to New York, the remaining seven miles he can obtain a first class ticket! What superior Anglo Saxon wisdom! You may travel over all New England in a first class railway car; but in Pennsylvania, you must either take a dog box or be confined to a certain part of a first class carriage. With all our stupidity, I believe we are not quite such fools as all this.

I can give people on this side the Atlantic, no better explanation of negro hate than the following. In England, the lowest classes

stare impudently at a black person, and frequently make some stupid, vulgar remark concerning him. The same is true in Ireland, but, strange to say, not in Scotland or Wales. Of course, I speak of my personal experience only. But a well bred Englishman or Irishman is quite incapable of anything of the sort. In Canada, and other portions of British America, the prejudice is confined to the lowest, dirtiest, most contemptible—except those beneath the reach of contempt—of all Her Gracious Majesty's [illegible] subjects, and the immediate descendants of such—like Judge Haliburton, for instance. In the United States, you find prejudice less, in refined New England, greater among the stolid Dutch and their descendants. There, too, you find the refined and educated English and Irish, as a rule maintaining their impartiality, while the low pauper, scum, offscourings from here and Ireland, become the bitterest persecutors of the negro. Putting all these parts together, I infer from them that our disparagement had its origin where it now has its chief seat, in the low degraded minds of the early semi-savage settlers of America; and they having once fixed the fashion, those following them to their new homes, were made of stuff just about malleable enough to be moulded into the same shape. Certain it is, that New England was settled with a far better class than New York. It is equally certain that the Western portion of the latter State, and all the Western States were settled by New Englanders. It is no less certain that Eastern New York, and New Jersey, and Eastern Pennsylvania, settled by Dutch, differ most widely from New England and the West—Now, pray don't disturb my theory; I want to balance it.

But be the origin or the philosophy—if it have the latter—of this fiendish feeling what it may, it exists—it exists to our disparagement, to our disfranchisement, to our enslavement. It is for us to expose it, to seek its destruction, to claim and to vindicate our natural God given equality, to recover our enfranchisement and to take back out liberty. This, I apprehend, is to be done chiefly by our development. I have my own opinions about the best place and the best conditions for that development. Writing for a United States paper, I will neither offend nor trouble you with all my notions on this point; but must be allowed to say, with all deference to my excellent personal friends—if they will allow me to call them such—G. Ralston, Esq., of London, A. Washington, Esq, of Monrovia and His Excellency, the Hon. Benjamin Roberts, President of Liberia— that place is not Africa and that condition is not the present nor the prospective condition of that republic, over which the last named of these gentlemen so ably presides. And I am saying no more now than I took the liberty of saying no more now than I took the liberty of saying to His Excellency, when he did me the honor to visit me here four months ago.

In future numbers, if you please, I will compare the negro with the boasted and boasting Anglo-Saxon. We shall see upon what basis rests this vaunting claim of superiority. For, I doubt not, that if either class need feel ashamed of the comparison, it is not the modern negro.

I have the honor to remain,

Your obedient servant,

SAMUEL RINGGOLD WARD.

LONDON, March, 1855.