"LETTER OF GEORGE CHURCHILL OF MADISON COUNTY, ILL., TO MR. SWIFT ELDRED, WARREN CT.

Madison County, Illinois, Sept. 9, 1818.

 Dear Sir:

Agreeably to the promise which I made on parting with you on the 3d of August, I now take my pen to inform you of the result of the Convention. They have decided against slavery in general, but as if they had not courage to do entirely right, they have, I am told, confirmed the indenture by which some persons now hold slaves, but enacted that no more negroes shall be indentured for a longer term than one year. The children of slaves to be free, the males at 21 and the females at 18 years of age. They tolerate, until the year 1824, the introduction of slaves into the Lick reservation, a tract of 12 miles square, near to Shawneetown, on the Ohio, usually called United States' Saline. The pretext for this measure is this: These Salt Works are leased to certain wealthy Kentuckians, who work them by their slaves, and who could not work them, if their slaves should become free by being sent into Illinois.

The Governor and Lieut. Gov. are elected for four years. Senators for four years, and Representatives for two. Sheriffs and coroners are also chosen by the people. Four judges of the Supreme Court are to be appointed to hold their seats till 1824, and those who shall then be appointed are to hold their scats during qood behavior. The Governor and Judges have each a salary of 1000 dollars. The members of the Legislature not exceeding two dollars per day, six months residence in the territory will entitle a citizen to vote, and at the first election which will commence on the 17th instant, all citizens will be permitted to vote, who were in the territory at the adoption of the constitution. Col. Shadrach Bond of Kaskaskia is the only candidate for Governor. He will, of course, be elected. Dr. Cadwell, a native of Connecticut, is a candidate for the Senate from this county, and I trust will be elected. John Y. Sawyer, Esq., a brother Yankee, is a candidate for Representative from this county, and I have hopes of his gaining the election. The Convention have left the mode of election to be fixed by the Legislature, but this election is to be conducted on the old plan, that is, viva voce. I hope that we shall soon bring about a change, and have elections conducted in the Yankee fashion. I have just drawn up a Memorial in favor of election by ballot, which has received a great many signatures.

On the whole, although the Constitution does not exactly suit me, yet there is nothing to deter, and everything to encourage and stimulate the Yankees to emigrate hither. Slavery is so far excluded, that hardly any slaveholder will think of settling here, especially while the Missouri Territory offers them so many advantages. Our emigrants will henceforth be composed of friends of liberty and of election by ballot. A large proportion of them will be Yankees. Let us have a few more of the right sort of people, and we shall be soon able to expel the little remnant of slavery which the Convention have left among us. The majority is in favor of the entire exclusion of slavery, but some slaveholders were smuggled into the Convention by making great profession of their opposition to slavery, and they contrived to get an article in the Constitution that they might keep their own slaves, but that no more should be indentured for a longer term than a year. I am not certain, indeed, that Congress will ratify the Constitution; for it is a solemn article in the ordinance of July 13, 1787, that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in this State, except for the punishment of crimes." But whether Congress ratify it or not, we shall soon be able to manage the slaveholders, if we can get some more Yankees. Come on, then, and help us.

 Major Wadsworth from N. York, has settled on the Illinois Bounty Lands. He has the deeds for 300 quarter sections which he has purchased of the soldiers. He sells them for $1.50 and $2.00 per acre, according to their situation—and gives the same credit as the U. States give. Mr. Button, a Yankee, settled on the Bounty Lands, was here today. He represents it as a very good country, excellent for raising cattle and hogs, and abounding in springs and crystal streams. He says that bees are so plenty that he has found ten bee trees in part of two days. The Missouri Bounty Lands, also, will be worth purchasing as they lie in a very fertile and rapidly settling country. They will answer to speculate upon; but you do not want to live in that land of slavery and Kentuckyism.

When you come, I wish you to bring me onion seed, of the real old fashioned (Wetherfield!) also, some seed of the crook-necked squash and summer squash. You will also do well to bring a good assortment of garden seeds and fruit tree seeds, such as pears, plums, cherries, etc., and not forget clover and timothy seed. Do not be satisfied with bringing enough for your own use, but bring some to speculate upon, and some for your humble servant. The new survey remains in statu quo. When it will be sold is very uncertain. No more lands have been surveyed, but we have room enough for all the Yankees in New England. Buy up soldiers' Patents, if you can get them cheap. Some soldiers have been offered ten dollars per acre for their land. People are settling very fast on the Bounty Lands, and you may, therefore, purchase an improved quarter. Those lands are said to be the best, near the Base Line. Many of our old settlers talk qf getting out and moving to the Bounty Lands. I have the honor to be yours, (Signed) Geo. Churchill

GEORGE CHURCHILL

George Churchill, early printer and legislator, was born at Hubbardtown, Rutland County, Vermont, October 11, 1789; received a good education, thus imbibing a taste for literature which led to his learning the printer's trade. In 1806 he became an apprentice in the office of the Albany (N. Y.) Sentinel, and, after serving his time, worked as a journeyman printer, thereby accumulating means to purchase a halfinterest in a small printing office. Selling this out at a loss, a year or two later, he went to New York and, after working at the case some five months, started for the West, stopping enroute at Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Louisville. In the latter place he worked for a time in the office of The Courier, and still later in that of The Correspondent, then owned by Colonel Elijah C. Berry, who subsequently came to Illinois and served as Auditor of Public Accounts. In 1817 he arrived in St. Louis, but, attracted by the fertile soil of Illinois, determined to engage in agricultural pursuits, finally purchasing land some six miles southeast of Edwardsville, in Madison County, where he continued to reside the remainder of his life. In order to raise means to improve his farm, in the spring of 1819 he worked as a compositor in the office of The Missouri Gazette, the predecessor of The St. Louis Republic. While there he wrote a series of articles over the signature of "A Farmer of St. Charles County," advocating the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union without slavery, which caused considerable excitement among the friends of that institution. During the same year he aided Hooper Warren in establishing his paper, The Spectator, at Edwardsville, and, still later, became a frequent contributor to its columns, especially during the campaign of 1822-24, which resulted, in the latter year, in the defeat of the attempt to plant slavery in Illinois. In 1822 he was elected Representative in the Third General Assembly, serving in that body by successive re-elections until 1832. His re-election for a second term, in 1824, demonstrated that his vote at the preceding session, in opposition to the scheme for a State Convention to revise the State Constitution in the interest of slavery, was approved by his constituents. In 1838 he was elected to the State Senate, serving four years, and, in 1844, was again elected to the House—in all serving a period in both Houses of sixteen years. Mr. Churchill was never married. He was an industrious and systematic collector of historical records and, at the time of his death in the summer of 1872, left a mass of documents and other historical material of great value.

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