In this letter Nathaniel Appleton replies to St. George Tucker's queries, circulated by Jeremy Belknap, about slavery and abolition in Massachusetts, indicating that he believes the southern states that still allow slavery will be faced with a burden when the time comes to abolish it.  Appleton (1731-1798) was a Boston merchant whose pamphlet Considerations on Slavery (Boston, 1767) argued that the "vile" slave trade was "contrary to humanity, christianity, and the interest of the province, and of private families ..."