"So spake the fiend and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds."
Paradise Lost, Bk. 4, ll. 393, 394.
Milton a true lover of freedom well knew the peril of an argument based upon supposed necessity. Necessity is generally but another name for greed or worse.
[12] For example, the Statute of (1732) 5 Geo. II, c. 7, enacted, sec. 4, "that from and after the said 29th September, 1732, the Houses, Lands, Negroes and other Hereditaments and real Estates situate or being within any of the said (British) Plantations (in America) shall be liable" to be sold under execution. Note that the Negroes are "Hereditaments and Real estate," as were the villeins—a rule wholly different from that of the French law.
[13] His Commission is dated November 28, 1763, Shortt & Doughty, Constitutional Documents, 1759-1761, pp. 126, sqq.
[14] Canadian Archives, Murray Papers, Vol. II, p. 15: the Quebec Act mentioned immediately below is (1774) 14 George III, c. 83.
In 1774 the well known Quebec Act reintroduced the former French Canadian law in civil matters while it retained the English law in criminal matters; but the change made no difference in the condition of the slave.
[15] The three which follow I owe to the interesting paper of Mr. E. Z. Massicotte, Archivist of Montreal published in Le Bulletin des Recherches Historiques for November, 1918, pp. 348 sqq.—the advertisement in the Gazette is to be found in Terrill's Chronicles of Montreal. The paper was 2½ Spanish dollars per annum, 10 sous per copy, published every Wednesday.
[16] The "Upper Countries" were Detroit and Michilimackinae, sometimes including the Niagara region—at this time there were practically no residents in what became the Province of Upper Canada and is now the Province of Ontario. The letter is to be found in the Canadian Archives, B. 217, p. 21: as no further record appears, it is to be presumed that an order was made for sale by the Sheriff.
The Report of James Monk Attorney-General at Quebec about to be mentioned is to be found in the Canadian Archives, B. 207, p. 105.