their territories. Unfortunately for the honor of Rhode Island, this law presently fell into abeyance. In his old age, even Williams himself became a slave-holder, having received an Indian boy for his share of the spoils of Philip's war, during which contest he held a commission as captain. Perhaps, however, he only claimed to hold the boy as an indented servant.

It was not till cases arose for which the English common law, as the colonists understood it, made no provisions satisfactory to the slave-holders, that any distinct mention of slavery occurs in the legislation of Virginia. In the course of forty years, by which time the slaves numbered two thousand, in a population of forty thousand, mulatto children had been born, and grown to manhood. What should be the condition of these children? By the English law, when the fathers were free, the children were free also. But this did not suit the interest of the slave-holders; the mulattoes were few, ignorant, and helpless, and the Virginia legislature, notwithstanding its acknowledged obligation to conform strictly to English law, did not hesitate to disregard a great and wellestablished principle of that law, and to enact, that children should follow the condition of the mother; and this principle, by statute or usage, was ultimately adopted in all the colonies.

Another question, not less interesting to the slave-holders, presently arose. Of the negroes brought to Virginia, some had been converted and baptized. This was the case to a still greater extent with those born in the colony. By what right were these Christians held as slaves? The law of England, even according to the view of it entertained by the colonists, did not allow the slavery of Christians. It was only pagans and infidels who could be enslaved. But the Virginia assembly came to the relief of the masters; and with that audacious disregard of all law and all right except its own good pleasure, by which slave-holding legislation has ever been characterized, that body enacted, in utter defiance of the English law, even their own version of it,- that negroes converted and baptized should not thereby become free. This act bears date in 1669. Another act, passed the same year, in equal defiance of the English law, provided, that killing slaves by extremity of correction should not be esteemed felony, "since it cannot be presumed that prepense malice should induce any man to destroy his own estate."

These three acts, the legislative basis of slavery in Virginia, were enacted during the government of Sir William Berkeley, well known for his famous apostrophe "I thank God we have no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them; and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!" This wish has not been in vain. The establishment of slavery secured its fulfilment. Virginia has no free schools to this day; none, at least, worthy of the name. She has, indeed, a few printing-presses; but they are muzzled, gagged, effectually restrained from libels against that "best government" the oligarchy of slave-holders.

The very next year after the enactment of the two lastmentioned statutes, the assembly of Virginia plainly admitted, that no Christian could rightfully be held in slavery. It had been provided, for reasons of policy or humanity, that Indians should not be held as slaves. Whatever the reason, it places the legislation of Virginia, on this point, in honorable contrast to that of New England, where, as we have seen, the contrary practice prevailed. But did this prohibition extend to Indian captives taken in war, elsewhere than in Virginia, and brought to that colony for sale? This question was settled by enacting, that "all servants, not being Christians, imported by shipping, shall be slaves for their lives." Servants imported by land were to serve a limited time only. Freedom had just been denied to Christian negroes converted in the colony, or born there; but the assembly did not venture to usurp any such jurisdiction over stranger Christians. All stranger Christians coming into the colony, of whatever origin or color, were to be free. In attempting to give a legislative establishment to the slavery of Christians and mulattoes, the governor and assembly put at defiance what they knew to be the English law. Yet in the preamble to the code of 1662, in which all the laws of the colony were embodied, those laws are expressly declared to be a mere extract from the laws of England, to which the assembly "profess and acknowledge all due obedience and reverence, sometimes, perhaps, from the difference of our and their condition, varying in small things, but far from the presumption of contradicting any thing therein contained." Berkeley, too, in that very paper above quoted, containing his objurgation of free schools and printing-presses, expressly declares, that "contrary to the laws of England,

we never did nor dare make any." He admits, indeed, one exception, namely, requiring deeds to be recorded. Such an exception seems to be one of those that prove the rule.

As a necessary pendant to the slave code, the system of subjecting the free to disabilities now also began. It was enacted in Virginia, in 1670, that negro women, though free, should be rated and taxed as tythables. Free negroes and Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold white servants.

The virtuous resolution of Virginia on the subject of Indians did not last long; nor did its freedom from schools and printing-presses preserve the colony from rebellion. The immedi ate cause of Bacon's insurrection was the refusal of Berkeley to authorize expeditions against the Indians, who had lately committed some depredations. Berkeley prepared a scheme of defence by forts, but the colonists alleged that his interest in the fur-trade made him too tender of the Indians. A law enacted in 1676, by Bacon's insurgent assembly, might seem to imply, that the eagerness of the colonists for offensive war was not altogether disinterested. Into an act for the prosecution of the Indian war a provision was inserted, that Indian prisoners might be held as slaves; and this, with some other of Bacon's laws, was continued in force after the suppression of the insurrection.

In 1682, during Culpepper's administration, the slave code of Virginia received some additions. Slaves were forbidden to carry arms offensive or defensive; or to go off their master's plantation, without a written pass; or to lift hand against a Christian, even in self-defence. Runaways, who refused to be apprehended, might be lawfully killed. Already the internal slave-trade was begun,-that trade in which Virginia still bears so unhappy a part. As yet, however, the colony was purchaser, not seller, and facilities for purchasing were extended by a partial repeal of the existing provision in favor of stranger Christians. It was enacted, that all servants, whether negroes, Moors, mulattoes, or Indians, brought into the colony by sea or land, whether converted to Christianity or not, (provided they were not of Christian parentage and country,) and also all Indians bought of the neighbouring or other tribes, might be held as slaves. Yet, with all this eagerness for new purchases, the evils of the slave system were already felt. The colony was suffering severely from an overproduction of tobacco; to such a degree, that the poorer people could scarcely purchase clothes for themselves;-an over

production to which, as Culpepper stated, in an official report, "the buying of blacks had exceedingly contributed."

In 1691, shortly after the breaking out of the first French and Indian war, policy or humanity, or both combined, recovered the mastery. The slavery of Indians, sanctioned by statute since the time of Bacon's rebellion, was now finally abolished. Yet the humane intentions of the legislature were but partially fulfilled, and the practice of enslaving Indians was still continued. The Virginia records were always in the most disorderly state. As it was the judicious custom, in that colony, to codify all the statute law from time to time, the original date of particular enactments was apt to be forgotten. This law, forbidding the enslavement of Indians, was included in the codification of 1705, and was long supposed to have been originally enacted in that year. When, at a period shortly subsequent to the Revolution, -the golden age of Virginia, an interest began to be felt in emancipation, many of the descendants of Indians were encouraged to bring suits to vindicate their freedom. In all cases in which the servitude of the ancestor appeared to have commenced subsequent to 1705, (the supposed earliest date of the prohibitive act,) the Virginia Court of Appeals held the claimants entitled to their freedom; but many petitions were dismissed, because the petitioners could not bring themselves within that limit. When, at length, the act of 1691 was discovered in manuscript, the Court of Appeals recognized its authority, and decided, in conformity to it, that no Indian, subsequently to the year 1691, could lawfully have been reduced to slavery; and that the descendants of all such Indians were free. This decision, however, availed but few of the unhappy sufferers. They were too ignorant and helpless to vindicate their rights. "Multitudes of the descendants of Indians in Virginia,"-80 says Hening, the learned and laborious editor of the Virginia statutes," are still unjustly deprived of their liberty;" another proof how little the law avails the feeble and defenceless.

This same code of 1705 above referred to, made some additional modifications in the statutes relating to slaves and the mixed race. "All servants imported and brought into this country by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country, (except Turks and Moors in amity with her Majesty, and others who can make due proof of their being free in England, or any other Christian country, before they

were shipped in order to transportation hither,) shall be ac counted and be slaves, and as such be here bought and sold, notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards." "All children to be bond or free, according to the condition of their mothers."

Such was the final enactment of Virginia, under which near half her population are still held as slaves. But even in this act, the original idea, that no Christian could be reduced to slavery, is still apparent. In the case of servants newly brought into the colony, religion, not color, nor race, is made the sole test of distinction between slavery and indented service. Whatever may have been the practice, it is plain enough, that under this act no negro who was a Christian in his native country could be brought into Virginia and held there as a slave; and this law remains unrepealed to the present day.

This same code also provided, that persons convict in England of crimes punishable with loss of life or member, and "all negroes, mulattoes, and Indians," should be incapacitated to hold office in the colony. White women having bastard chil dren by negroes or mulattoes were to pay the parish fifteen pounds, or, in default of payment, to be sold for five years, the child to be bound out as a servant for thirty-one years. "And for a further prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue, which hereafter may increase in this her Majesty's colony and dominion, as well by English and other white men and women intermarrying with negroes and mulattoes," as by unlawful connection with them, it was enacted, that any man or woman intermarrying with a negro or mulatto, bond or free, should be imprisoned six months and fined ten pounds,-the minister celebrating the marriage to be fined also. Thus early was the bugbear cry of "amalgamation" raised in Virginia. Similar laws enacted in the other colonies operated to degrade and keep down the colored race, and to prevent the institution. of slavery from assuming that patriarchal character, by which, in other countries, it is greatly softened, and sometimes has been superseded.

Nothing, indeed, is more striking than the different treatment bestowed by Anglo-American slave-holders, especially those of the United States, upon their own children by slave mothers, and the behaviour of Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and French slave-holders towards their children similarly begotten. In the slave-holding colonies of these latter nations,