AN IRISH SLAVE TRADER.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 161, 6 May 1859, Page 4

AN IRISH SLAVE TRADER.

Among the most consistent philosophers at present engaged in the support and defence of human slavery, we must certainly rank that illustrious patriot, John Mitchell, the Irishman, who is at present grinding in the slaveholders' mill at Knoxville, and who will be transferred, when his owners are ready, to the mill at Washington, in which the grinding will be worse and the pay proportionately better. Those who are not over-nice in their moral notions, who like to behold perversion perfect, and who find a fascination in the utter wreck of humanity, will enraptured to learn that Mr. Mitchell has reached the lowest depth of mental degradation, and is now about the most beautifully noisome individual connected with the American Press. In his way —which it not a very flagrant way— he is now positively accomplished. We do not think that any future offences of his can be ranker or smell higher than that which he has now committed. He is laudably ambitious to sink; but we think that his ambition should, and in the nature of things must, now rest satisfied. When a man honestly believes, and of course Mr. John Mitchell is honest, in manstealing and kidnapping, it is exceedingly creditable for him to have the moral courage to avow his belief plumply and plainly, without circumlocution or extenuation. *lam a villain,' said the Irish actor in the barn, with a knit brow and general truculent physiognomy. 'That's a fact,' exclaimed some admiring critic in the auditorium. ' You lie,'responded the indignant histrion. But Mr. John does not so answer when his frank avowal meets with a similar response. He puts on his sweetest smile, makes his best bow, and blandly acknowledges that he is a villain, and proud of his villainy—a traitor, and proud of his treason—a kidnapper, and proud of his kidnapping. His brazen boldness is the most delicious thing of the kind which has ever come to our knowledge except through the pages of < Jonathan Wild the Great,'' Paul Clifford,' or the 'Newgate Calendar.' He makes us think of the old border ruffian of Scotland, who, ' sac rantingly, sac dantingly,' danced round the gallows-tree. We are indebted to him in this prosaic time for a new sensation. A champion of Irish emancipation transmogrified into a ' nigger-driving Yankee/ and still yearning for new gangs and fresh niggers, is an object for any travelling menagerie, and. cannot be gazed upon without awe, and other sensations too numerous and too peculiar to be mentioned. We do not know that our readers will beat all surprised when they learn that this Irish patriot has plainly avowed himself the champion of the African slave trade. He is more Southern than the extremest Southern soldier of slavery; and, like most converts of the kind, he.makes an ass of himself in avowing his conversion. Southern gentlemen who have heretofore deluded "themselves into the belief that they were tolerably faithful to the institution, are lectured with immense severity- by: this Irish brave, ancl are reminded by him, with more vigor than modesty, of their duties. They are told, in fact, that they lack pluck, which is, we suppose, the most moralinsult whicL can be offered to your genuine Southron; that -until they come out boldly for piracy— that Is, for what the civilized world has agreed to consider piracy-—they are a set of wooden spoons, talking much, it is true,

about chivalry, but without one particle of chivalry in their composition. Such frankness is delightful to us. Mr. Mitchell propounds his theory of negro importation in a gay, rollicking, humorous spirit, in which the bloodthirstiness of the Thug is agreeably dashed with the overflowing humor of the Hibernian. He is especially funny about the King of Ashantee, who has a lot of 'fine, cheap fellows' for sale, and proposes, in his light way, 'to patronize the King of Ashantee.' He plants himself upon what he calls the 'human flesh platform,' and gloats and giggles over his horrid theories, as we may imagine the King of Dahomey dilating with rapture as he puts the capsheaf-skull to one of his amiable pyramids. Well it is to be merry and wise; and it may not be well to be honest and true; but we suppose that we must not blame the poor exile of Erin for being merry and otherwise. If a man' must eat the bread of dependance, we cannot blame him for salving it with the mai'malade of merriment.— J^ew York Tribune.