[9] See the various tracts on this subject, by Granville Sharpe, Esq. of London.

[10] The condition of a villein had most of the incidents I have before described in giving the idea of slavery, in general. His services were uncertain and indeterminate, such as his lord thought fit to require; or as some of our ancient writers express it, he knew not in the evening what he was to do in the morning, he was bound to do whatever he was commanded. He was liable to beating, imprisonment, and every other chastisement his lord could devise, except killing and maiming. He was incapable of acquiring property for his own benefit; he was himself the subject of property; as such saleable and transmissible. If he was a villein regardant he passed with the land to which he was annexed, but might be severed at the will of his lord; if he was a villein in gross, he was an hereditament, or a chattel real, according to his lord's interest; being descendible to the heir, where the lord was absolute owner, and transmissible to the executor where the lord had only a term of years in him. Lastly, the slavery extended to the issue, if the father was a villein, our law deriving the condition of the child from that of the father, contrary to the Roman law, in which the rule was, partus sequitur ventum. Hargrave's Case of Negroe Somerset, page 26 and 27.

The same writer refers the origin of vassalage in England, principally to the wars between the British, Saxon, Danish, and Norman nations, contending for the sovereignty of that country, in opposition to the opinion of judge Fitzherbert, who supposes villeinage to have commenced at the conquest. Ib. 27, 28. And this he proves from Spelman and other antiquaries. Ib. The writ de nativo habendo, by which the lord was enabled to recover his villein that had absconded from him, creates a presumption that all the natives of England were at some period reduced to a state of villeinage, the word nativus, which signified a villein, most clearly designating the person meant thereby to be a native: this etymon is obvious, as well from the import of the word nativus, as from the history of the more remote ages of Britain. Sir Edward Coke's Etymology, "quia plerumque nascuntur servi," is one of those puerile conceits, which so frequently occur in his works, and are unworthy of so great a man.

Barrington in his observations upon magna carta c. 4. observes, that the villeins who held by servile tenures were considered as so many negroes on a sugar plantation; the words "liber homo," in magna carta, c. 14. with all deference to sir Edward Coke, who says they mean a free-holder, I understand as meaning a free man,[Liber homo, &c. the title of freeman was formerly confined to the nobility and gentry who were descended of free ancestors.—Burgh's Political Disquisitions, vol. iii. p. 400, who cites Spelman's Glossary, voc. Liber homo.] as contradistinguished from a villein: for in the very next sentence the words "et villanus alterius quam noster," occur. Villeins must certainly have been numerous at that day, to have obtained a place in the Great Charter. It is no less an evidence that their condition was in a state of melioration.

In Poland, at this day, the peasants seem to be in an absolute state of slavery, or at least of villeinage, to the nobility, who are the land-holders.

[11] Among the Israelites, according to the Mosaical law, "If a man smote his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he died under his hand, he should surely be punished—notwithstanding if he continue a day or two, he should not be punished [Exod. c. 21]:" for, saith the text, he is his money. Our legislators appear to have adopted the reason of the latter clause, without the humanity of the former part of the law.

[12] Hannah and other Indians, against Davis.—Since this adjudication, I have met with a manuscript act of assembly made in 1691 c. 9 entitled, "An Act for a free Trade with Indians," the enacting clause of which is in the very words of the act of 1705. c. 52. A similar title to an act of that session occurs in the edition of 1733. p. 94. and the chapter is numbered as in the manuscript. If this manuscript be authentic (which there is some reason to presume, it being copied in some blank leaves at the end of Purvis's edition, and apparently written about the time of the passage of the act), it would seem that no Indians brought into Virginia for more than a century, nor any of their descendents, can be retained in slavery in this commonwealth.

[13] Although it be true that the number of slaves in the whole state bears the proportion of 292,427, to 747,610, the whole number of souls in the state, that is, nearly as two to five; yet this proportion is by no means uniform throughout the state. In the forty-four counties lying upon the Bay, and the great rivers of the state, and comprehended by a line including Brunswick, Cumberland, Goochland, Hanover, Spottsylvania, Stafford, Prince William and Fairfax, and the counties eastward thereof, the number of slaves is 196,542, and the number of free persons, including free Negroes and mulattoes, 198,371 only. So that the blacks in that populous and extensive district of country are more numerous than the whites. In the second class, comprehending nineteen counties, and extending from the last mentioned line to the Blue Ridge, and including the populous counties of Frederick and Berkeley, beyond the Blue Ridge, there are 82,286 slaves, and 136,251 free persons; the number of free persons in that class not being two to one, to the slaves. In the third class the proportion is considerably increased; the eleven counties of which it consists contain only 11,218 slaves, and 76,281 free persons. This class reaches to the Allegany ridge of mountains: the fourth and last class, comprehending fourteen counties westward of the third class, contains only 2,381 slaves, and 42,288 free persons. It is obvious from this statement that almost all the dangers and inconveniences which may be apprehended from a state of slavery on the one hand, or an attempt to abolish it, on the other, will be confined to the people eastward of the blue ridge of mountains.

[14] The following is a list of the acts, or titles of acts, imposing duties on slaves imported, which occur in the various compilations of our laws, or in the Sessions Acts, or Journals.

1699,c. 12. title only retained. Edit. of 1733,p. 113
1701,c. 5. the same, 116
1704,c. 4. the same, 122
1705,c. 1. the same, 126
1710,c. 1. the same, 239
1712,c. 3. the same, 282
1723,c. 1. repealed by proclamation, 333
1727,c. 1. enacted with a suspending clause, and the royal assent refused, 376
1732,c. 3. printed at large, 469
1734,c. 3. printed at large in Sessions Acts.
1736,c. 1. the same.
1738,c. 6. the same.
1740,c. 2. the same.
1742,c. 2. the same.