Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/149

No. 42] Unreasonableness of this Demand, that they have received Petitions from the Darien, and other Parts of the Province, representing the Inconvenience and Danger, which must arise to the good People of the Province from the Introduction of Negroes. And as the Trustees themselves are fully convinced, that besides the Hazard attending that Introduction, it would destroy all Industry among the white Inhabitants ; and that by giving them a Power to alien their Lands, the Colony would soon be too like its Neighbours, void of white Inhabitants, filled with Blacks, and reduced to be the precarious Property of a Few, equally exposed to Domestick Treachery, and Foreign Invasion ; and therefore the Trustees cannot be supposed to be in any Disposition of granting this Request ; and if they have not before this signified their Dislike of it, this Delay is to be imputed to no other Motives, but the Hopes they had conceived, that Time and Experience would bring the Complainants to a better Mind : And the Trustees readily join Issue with them in their Appeal to Posterity, who shall judge between them, who were their best Friends ; Those, who endeavoured to preserve for them a Property in their Lands, by tying up the Hands of their unthrifty Progenitors ; or They, who wanted a Power to mortgage or alien them : Who were the best Friends to the Colony, Those who with great Labour and Cost had endeavoured to form a Colony of His Majesty's Subjects, and persecuted Protestants from other Parts of Europe, had placed them on a fruitful Soil, and strove to secure them in their Possessions, by those Arts which naturally tend to keep the Colony full of useful and industrious People, capable both to cultivate and defend it ; or Those, who, to gratify the greedy and ambitious Views of a few Negroe Merchants, would put it into their Power to become sole Owners of the Province, by introducing their baneful Commodity ; which, it is well known by sad Experience, has brought our Neighbour Colonies to the Brink of Ruin, by driving out their white Inhabitants, who were their Glory and Strength, to make room for Black, who are now become the Terror of their unadvised Masters. Signed by Order of the Trustees, this 20th Day of June, 1739. Benj. Martyn, Secretary.