fore the existence of the American colonies.] After their settlement, and the introduction of slavery by the mother country, the colonies had no power over the commerce, and cannot be regarded as answerable for its continuance. That they were sincerely and decidedly opposed to it, is demonstrated by their early, anxious, and continued efforts against it.

On the introduction of slaves into South Carolina, that colony passed a law prohibiting further importation; but Great Britain rejected the law, rebuked the colony, and declared the trade "beneficial and necessary to the mother country."

Virginia was early and constant in her efforts to discourage the trade. "The negro race," says Bancroft, "was, from the first, regarded with disgust, and its union with the whites forbidden under ignominious penalties." "The laws of Virginia," he also remarks, "at a very early period discouraged its increase by a special tax upon female slaves." In 1662, the Virginia legislature passed a law prohibiting "Englishmen, traders and others" from bringing Indians, as servants or slaves, into the colony, thus expressing their anxiety to suppress the trade when permitted to do so by the mother country. Judge Tucker, in his Notes on Blackstone, enumerates twenty-three acts by the Virginia legislature, imposing duties on slaves imported into the colony. This duty amounted, at one time, to twenty per cent. The following passage occurs in Brougham's Colonial Policy. "Every measure proposed by the Colonial legislatures that did not meet the entire concurrence of the British cabinet, was sure to be rejected, in the last instance, by the crown. In the colonies, the direct power of the crown, backed by all the resources of the mother country, prevents any measure obnoxious to the crown from being

carried into effect, even by the unanimous efforts of the Colonial legislature. If examples were required, we might refer to the history of the abolition of the slave-trade in Virginia. A duty on the importation of negroes had been imposed, amounting to a prohibition. The assembly, induced by a temporary peculiarity of circumstances, repealed this law by a bill which received the immediate sanction of the crown. But never afterwards could the royal assent be obtained to a renewal of the duty, although, as we are told by Mr. Jefferson, all manner of expedients were tried for this purpose, by almost every subsequent assembly that met under the colonial government. The very first assembly that met under the new constitution, finally prohibited the traffic."

In 1772, the Virginia assembly prepared, and transmitted to the throne, a petition for leave to abolish the slave-trade to that colony, from which the following is extracted.

"We are encouraged to look up to the throne and implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity of a most alarming nature.

"The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa, hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and, under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear, will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's American dominions.

"We are sensible that some of your Majesty's subjects of Great Britain may reap emolument from this sort of traffic, but when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may in time have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope that the interest of a few will be disregarded when placed in competition with the security and happi

ness of such numbers of your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects.

"Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your Majesty to remove all those restraints on your Majesty's governors of this colony which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce." The petition was rejected.

Massachusetts exhibited equal boldness and ardour in her opposition to the slave-trade. In 1645, two citizens of Boston, one a member of the church, fitted out a ship and sailed for Guinea, to trade for negroes. It is somewhat remarkable that the first instance of participation in the traffic, on the part of the colonies, is to be referred to that state which has since become the favourite laboratory of the abolitionists and incendiaries. The colonial commerce in slaves was always confined, principally, if not wholly, to the traders of the North. Whatever might have been the conduct of individuals, the colony manifested the most anxious determination to discourage the trade. When the vessel, above referred to, arrived, the traders were committed for the offence; and the General Court directed that the negroes be restored to their native country. About the same time, a law was passed prohibiting commerce in slaves, except such as were taken in lawful war or condemned to servitude for their crimes; and, at a much earlier date, the colony incorporated with its penal code, an enactment punishing manstealing with death. In 1703, Massachusetts imposed a duty of £4 upon every negro imported into the colony. Other efforts were made, but failed in consequence of the opposition of the crown. instructions to Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire, dated June 30th, 1761, contained this clause: "You are not to give your assent to, or pass any

The

law, imposing duties on negroes imported into New Hampshire." This appears to have been the tenor of the orders of all the governors on this subject. In 1774, when the legislature of Massachusetts passed a bill, entitled, "An act to prevent the importation of negroes and others, as slaves into this province," Governor Huchinson refused his sanction and dissolved the assembly. He afterwards, in answer to a deputation of blacks, stated that he had acted under his instructions. His successor, General Gage, was also instructed to refuse his sanction to any law, the object of which was the discouragement of the slave-trade.

Pennsylvania adopted a similar policy, and passed various laws intended to discourage the introduction of slaves. All the colonies, in short, united in deprecating and abhorring the introduction of negro slavery into the country, and passed ineffectual enactments for its discouragement. The efforts of the colonies, stripped as they were of all power of legislation on the subject without the royal assent, necessarily proved unavailing. The mother country was not to be turned aside from her purpose. If the shrieks of afflicted Africa were unable to move her, if she was willing to glut her "omnivorous avarice," as Mr. Walsh has justly termed it, on the tears and blood of the slave, it was not to be expected that the prayers and remonstrances of her feeble colonies-always the victim of her selfish and merciless policy-could shake or soften her stern and unscrupulous pursuit of gold.

That the policy of England on this subject, and her cold and sneering disregard of the interests and anxiety of the colonies, did much to accelerate their subsequent alienation—we have every reason to believe. Mr. Burke, in his speech on the conciliation with America, referred to her "refusal to

deal any more in the inhuman traffic of the negro slaves, as one of the causes of her quarrel with Great Britain." The first clause of the constitution of the state of Virginia, framed immediately after the commencement of the revolution, mentions "the inhuman use of the royal negative" to prevent the discouragement of the slave-trade, as one of the grievances which induced a recourse to the desperate remedy of revolution. The course of Great Britain on this subject is detailed, with great force and justice, in Mr. Jefferson's original draught of the Ďeclaration of American Independence.

"He (King George) has waged civil war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people who never offended him: captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain: determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce; and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes, committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

This, it must be reluctantly admitted, is a correct portraiture of the policy of Great Britain towards this country, in relation to the subject of slavery. -While it was her interest to darken our shores with