NEGRO SLAVERY.
389
bill, having expired by its limitation, was re-enacted.
Thus much for the acts of Assembly.*
To return to an earlier period. In the year 1712, the
Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia addressed an epistle to
the Yearly Meeting of Friends in London, stating that
for a number of years they had been seriously concerned
on account of the importation and trade in slaves, and of
the detention of them and their posterity "in bondage
without any limitation or time of redemption from that
condition;" that the meeting, by its advice, had en¬
deavored, and in some degree succeeded in discouraging
the traffic; yet, that as " settlements increased so other
traders flocked in among them over whom they had no
Gospel authority," and that the number of negroes was
thereby greatly increased in the province; they desired
that the London Yearly Meeting would consult with
Friends in the other colonies who were more engaged in
* The following is a list of all the Acts, prior to the Revolution,
and is somewhat fuller than that in the text. They are those of
1705, 1U0-11, 1U2, 1U5, 1717-18, 1120, 1722, 1^25-6, 1729, 1761,
1768, and 1773,—which last was made perpetual.
The Acts of date subsequent to 1705, are but modifications of the
one of that year; for, when through the bigoted policy of the
mother country, a repeal took place, another, so soon as expediency
allowed, was passed by the Assembly. The objection on the part of
the superior authorities was not because of the spirit of some of the
provisions of the Acts, which might have been better, but sprang
from a determination to force upon the Province an institution to
which it was averse.
Our author mistakes in supposing a law was passed in 1711; that
to which he alludes, but regrets he has not seen, was the one of
1712, of the main feature of which he seems to have been aware.
A fuller reference to these enactments will be found in a note, at
p. 415.—Editor.
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