Burlington Free Press

A Picture of Slavery.

The Norfolk Herald of Wednesday has a letter from a friend in Charlotte, Va., of the 9th inst., which the editors introduce to their readers as "very interesting;" it relates to the condition of the planters in consequence of three successive "bad years." The letter says:

"The sales of negroes continue at every Court day, and it is to be feared will continue for some time. As many as seventy were sold at the last Charlotte court, and I learn that a large number will be sold at Buckingham Court on Monday next. The public roads give evidence of numerous sales, and large gangs are wending their way to the South. I met a gang of seventy slaves on Thursday last, another of thirty the day after, and on Sunday a third of twenty or thirty. A hundred in a single gang passed Charlotte court house two or three weeks since, bound to the South. I speak of what has passed under my own observation. If Texas were annexed, or its independence guaranteed by us, or the great powers of Europe, I have every reason to believe that the stream of emigration would flow in that direction as full as Gen. Waddy Thompson, in his first letter to the National Intelligencer, predicted would be the case. Another series of three successive bad years would deprive Virginia of one third, perhaps one-half of her slaves. It would be well worth knowing how many slaves have left the state during the last two years. The number would almost exceed belief."