From this period I have not been able to refer to the Sessions Acts.
| 1752, | c. 1. printed at large in the edit. of 1769, | 281 |
| 1754, | c. 1. the same, | 319 |
| 1755, | c. 2. Sessions Acts. Ten per cent. in addition to all former duties. | |
| 1759, | c. 1. printed at large, edition of 1769, | 369 |
| 1763, | c. 1. Journals of that session. | |
| 1766, | c. 3, 4. printed at large, edit. of 1769, | 461, 462 |
| c. 15. additional duty, the title only is printed, being repealed by the crown, Ib. | 473 | |
| 1769, | c. 7, 8, and 12. title only printed, edition of 1785, | 6, 7 |
| 1772, | c. 15. title only printed, | Ibidem, 24 |
[15] ☞ The following extract from a petition to the throne, presented from the house of burgesses of Virginia, April 1, 1772, will shew the sense of the people of Virginia on the subject of slavery at that period.
"The many instances of your majesty's benevolent intentions and more gracious disposition to promote the prosperity and happiness of your subjects in the colonies, encourages us 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 emoluments 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 be disregarded when placed in competition with the security and happiness 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." Journals of the House of Burgesses, page 131.
This petition produced no effect, as appears from the first clause of our constitution, where among other acts of misrule, "the inhuman use of the royal negative" in refusing us permission to exclude slaves from among us by law, is enumerated, among the reasons for separating from Great Britain.
[16] In December term 1788, one John Huston was tried in the general court for the murder of a slave; the jury found him guilty of manslaughter, and the court, upon a motion in arrest of judgment, discharged him without any punishment. The general assembly being then sitting, some of the members of the court mentioned the case to some leading characters in the legislature, and the act was at the same session repealed.
[17] See Jefferson's Notes, 259.—The Marquis de Chatelleux's Travels, I have not noted the page; the Law of Retribution, by Granville Sharpe, pa. 151, 238, notes. The Just Limitation of Slavery, by the same author; pa. 15, note. Ibidem, pa. 33, 50, Ib. Append. No. 2. Encyclopédie. Tit. Esclave. Laws of Barbadoes, &c.