"17 Resolved. That it is the opinion of this meeting, that, during our present difficulties and distress, no slaves ought to be imported into any of the British colonies on this continent; and we take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop for ever put to such a wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade....

"21. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this meeting, that this and the other associating colonies should break off all trade, intercourse, and dealings with that colony, province, or town, which shall decline, or refuse to agree to, the plan which shall be adopted by the General Congress....

"24. Resolved, That George Washington and Charles Broadwater, lately elected our representatives to serve in the General Assembly, be appointed to attend the Convention at Williamsburg on the first day of August next, and present these resolves, as the sense of the people of this county upon the measures proper to be taken in the present alarming and dangerous situation of America."

Mr. Sparks comments upon the resolutions as follows:—

"The draught, from which the resolves are printed, I find among Washington's papers, in the handwriting of George Mason, by whom they were probably drawn up; yet, as they were adopted by the Committee of which Washington was chairman, and reported by him as moderator of the meeting, they may be presumed to express his opinions, formed on a perfect knowledge of the subject, and after cool deliberation. This may indeed be inferred from his letter to Mr. Bryan Fairfax, in which he intimates a doubt only as to the article favoring the idea of a further petition to the king. He was opposed to such a step, believing enough had been done in this way already; but he yielded the point in tenderness to the more wavering resolution of his associates.

"These resolves are framed with much care and ability, and exhibit the question then at issue, and the state of public feeling, in a manner so clear and forcible as to give them a special claim to a place in the present work, in addition to the circumstance of their being the matured views of Washington at the outset of the great Revolutionary struggle in which he was to act so conspicuous a part....

"Such were the opinions of Washington, and his associates in Virginia, at the beginning of the Revolutionary contest. The seventeenth resolve merits attention, from the pointed manner in which it condemns the slave trade."[522]

Dr. Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Dean Woodward, dated April 10, 1773, says,—

"I have since had the satisfaction to learn that a disposition to abolish slavery prevails in North America, that many of the Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty; and that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the king for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more into that Colony. This request, however, will probably not be granted as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed, and as the interest of a few merchants here has more weight with Government than that of thousands at a distance."[523]

Virginia gave early and positive proof that she was in earnest on the question of non-importation. One John Brown, a merchant of Norfolk, broke the rules of the colony by purchasing imported slaves, and was severely rebuked in the following article:—

"'TO THE FREEMEN OF VIRGINIA:

"'Committee Chamber, Norfolk, March 6, 1775

"'Trusting to your sure resentment against the enemies of your country, we, the committee, elected by ballot for the Borough of Norfolk, hold up for your just indignation Mr. John Brown, merchant of this place.

"'On Thursday, the 2d of March, this committee were informed of the arrival of the brig Fanny, Capt. Watson, with a number of slaves for Mr. Brown: and, upon inquiry, it appeared they were shipped from Jamaica as his property, and on his account; that he had taken great pains to conceal their arrival from the knowledge of the committee; and that the shipper of the slaves, Mr. Brown's correspondent, and the captain of the vessel, were all fully apprised of the Continental prohibition against that article.

"'From the whole of this transaction, therefore, we, the committee for Norfolk Borough, do give it as our unanimous opinion, that the said John Brown, has wilfully and perversely violated the Continental Association to which he had with his own hand subscribed obedience, and that, agreeable to the eleventh article, we are bound forthwith to publish the truth of the case, to the end that all such foes to the rights of British America may be publicly known and universally contemned as the enemies of American liberty, and that every person may henceforth break off all dealings with him.'"

And the first delegation from Virginia to Congress in August, 1774, had instructions as follows, drawn by Thomas Jefferson:—

"For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his Majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those Colonies, where it was, unhappily, introduced in their infant state. But, previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his Majesty's negative; thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice."[524]

It is scarcely necessary to mention the fact, that there were several very cogent passages in the first draught of the Declaration of Independence that were finally omitted. The one most pertinent to this history is here given:—