Page:Notices of Negro slavery as connected with Pennsylvania.djvu/24

388 decided that the prayer of the petitioner could not be granted. In the years 1715-17-21-26 and 29, different laws were passed, laying duties on negroes; these, with a bill of 1725-6, entitled an act for the better regulating of negroes in the province, are all the notices of the subject that we have been enabled to find on the votes of the Assembly up to 1761. The hostility of the English government to any supposed encroachment on the trade of the country, even in human flesh, appears to have been sufficient to prevent any further attempts to abolish this cruel traffic. Though the law of 1725-6, for the better regulating the negroes, contained some harsh provisions, it provided that the existing duty on negroes should be increased to 10l. per head; the third section obliged a master, on manumitting his slave, to give security that he should not become chargeable to the county; the fifth section enacted that no minister or magistrate should marry a negro with a white person under penalty of 100l., and that no negro be more than ten miles from home, without written permission from his master. In 1761, we find the last effort made to check the importation of slaves previous to 1770. In this year, remonstrances were presented to the Assembly from a large number of the inhabitants of Philadelphia, representing the mischievous effects of the slave-trade, and praying for such an increase of the duty on negroes as might effectually check further importation. After much debate in the House, and altercation with the Governor, a bill increasing the impost was passed. In 1768, this