FOOTNOTES:

[650] Slavery in Mass., pp 96, 97.

[651] Neil, pp. 39-41.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE COLONY OF NEW YORK.

1693, August 21st—All Indians, Negroes, and others not "listed in the militia," are ordered to work on the fortification for repairing the same, to be under the command of the captains of the wards they inhabit. And £100 to be raised for the fortifications.

1722, February 20th.—A law passed by the common council of New York, "restraining slaves, negroes, and Indians from gaming with moneys." If found gaming with any sort of money, "copper pennies, copper halfpence, or copper farthings," they shall be publickly whipped at the publick whipping-post of this city, at the discretion of the mayor, recorder, and aldermen, or any one of them, unless the owner pay to the church wardens for the poor, 3s.

1731, November 18th—If more than three negro, mulatto, or Indian slaves assemble on Sunday and play or make noise, (or at any other time at any place from their master's service,) they are to be publickly whipped fifteen lashes at the publick whipping-post.

NEW YORK.

Negro slavery, a favorite measure with England, was rapidly extending its baneful influence in the colonies. The American Register, of 1769, gives the number of negroes brought in slavery from the coast of Africa, between Cape Blanco and the river Congo, by different nations in one year, thus: Great Britain, 53,100; British Americans, 6,300; France, 23,520; Holland, 11,300; Portugal, 1,700; Denmark, 1,200; in all, 104,100, bought by barter for European and Indian manufacturers,—£15 sterling being the average price given for each negro. Thus we see that more than one half of the wretches who were kidnapped, or torn by force from their homes by the agents of European merchants (for such those who supply the market must be considered), were sacrificed to the cupidity of the merchants of Great Britain; the traffic encouraged by the government at the same time that the boast is sounded through the world, that the moment a slave touches the sacred soil, governed by those who encourage the slavemakers, and inhabited by those who revel in the profits derived from murder, he is free. Somerset, the negro, is liberated by the court of king's bench, in 1772, and the world is filled with the fame of English justice and humanity! James Grahame tells us that Somerset's case was not the first in which the judges of Great Britain counteracted in one or two cases the practical inhumanity of the government and the people: he says, that in 1762, his grandfather, Thomas Grahame, judge of the admiralty court of Glasgow, liberated a negro slave imported into Scotland.

It was in vain that the colonists of America protested against the practice of slave dealing. The governors appointed by England were instructed to encourage it, and when the assemblies enacted laws to prohibit the inhuman traffic, they were annulled by the vetoes of the governors. With such encouragement, the reckless and avaricious among the colonists engaged in the trade, and the slaves were purchased when brought to the colonies by those who were blind to the evil, or preferred present ease or profit to all future good. Paley, the moralist, thought the American Revolution was designed by Providence, to put an end to the slave trade, and to show that a nation encouraging it was not fit to be intrusted with the government of extensive colonies. But the planter of the Southern States have discovered, since made free by that revolution, that slavery is no evil; and better moralists than Paley, that the increase of slaves, and their extension over new regions, is the duty of every good democrat. The men who lived in 1773, to whom America owes her liberty, did not think so.

Although resistance to the English policy of increasing the number of negro slaves in America agitated many minds in the colonies, opposition to the system of taxation was the principal source of action; and this opposition now centered in a determination to baffle the designs of Great Britain in respect to the duties on tea. Seventeen millions of pounds of tea were now accumulated in the warehouses of the East-India Company. The government was determined, for reasons I have before given, to assist this mercantile company, as well as the African merchants, at the expense of the colonists of America. The East-India Company were now authorized to export their tea free of all duty. Thus the venders being enabled to offer it cheaper than hitherto to the colonists, it was expected that it would find a welcome market. But the Americans saw the ultimate intent of the whole scheme, and their disgust towards the mother country was proportionably increased.

INDEX.