Page:A dissertation on slavery - with a proposal for the gradual abolition of it, in the state of Virginia. (IA dissertationonsl00tuckrich).pdf/41

 this means the difficulty of proving the right to freedom will be not a little augmented: for the fact of the first importation, where the right to freedom immediately ensued, might have been always proved without difficulty; but where a slave is subject to removal from place to place, and his right to freedom is postponed for so long a time as a whole year, or perhaps several years, the provisions in favour of liberty may be too easily evaded. The same act declares that no persons shall thenceforth be slaves in this commonwealth, except such as were so on the first day of that session (Oct. 17th, 1785), and the descendants of the females of them. This act was re-enacted in the revisal made in 1792. In 1793 an additional act passed, authorising and requiring any justice of the peace having notice of the importation of any slaves, directly or indirectly, from any part of Africa or the West Indies, to cause such slave to be immediately apprehended and transported out of the commonwealth. Such is the rise, progress, and present foundation of slavery in Virginia, so far as I have been able to trace it. The present number of slaves in Virginia, is immense, as appears by the census taken in 1791, amounting