first session held under the republican government, the Assembly passed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the importation of slaves. This will in some measure stop the increase of this great political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature." Jefferson was to have a far more influential part in the sad drama with which the abolition of slavery was to take place in the United States than is generally known!

In Massachusetts, during the war for Independence a State Constitution was adopted by the people, whose “Bill of Rights" was so worded that slavery could not lawfully exist in the State. It has been falsely said if I mistake not, by some uninformed speakers, that the Northern States in a very cheap way to themselves got rid of slavery,-that they sold their slaves to the Southern States. Doubtless for years before the Civil War the legislation of the State of New York, and to a greater or less extent the legislation of other States, was sadly tainted with indifference to the turpitude of slavery; and yet it may be doubted whether in the history of the great State of New York there are many more illustrious incidents than the way it got rid of slavery. The State of New York decreed liberty to the enslaved at a specified period, and made it an offence to which a severe penalty was attached for any one to convey away or in any manner whatever to sell out of the State, any one held as a slave. If any citizen of New York, in view of the day of emancipation, wished to visit the South with his slaves, he was obliged to give bonds for their return before he was allowed to go, and he had to give an account of them if he returned without them. What is true of the humane emancipation laws of New York is, in general, true of the laws of all the Northern States. Governor

John Jay, who, with Alexander Hamilton, was an out and out Abolitionist-the one being President and the other Secretary of an Abolitionist society in New York,—-used his influence as Governor with good effect in behalf of his colored friends.

More horrible than the most dreadful tales ever told of pirates, were the scenes of sickening wickedness enacted in the prosecution of the slave-trade. To give even a faint idea of the traffic in human flesh and blood, an account would have to be given of the way in which wars were fomented in Africa so that slaves could be obtained for the slave-ship;-of how villages were fired in the night and the fleeing women and children captured, loaded with irons, and compelled to walk sometimes many hundreds of miles to reach the vessel which was to bear them into hopeless bondage;-of the innumerable treacheries and piratical attacks upon the people by heartless ruffians;—and of how even venal African princes for intoxicating beverages would sell their own subjects. Once on board the slaver the wretched men and women and children were often obliged to occupy as little room as possible. They were chained to each other and to their respective places. In thousands of cases the slaves were given as little room as is allowed to the dead when placed in coffins. Lying, in many cases naked on bare boards, the motion of the vessel would sometimes cause their flesh to be scraped to the bones. At times the steam from their bodies would come up from the openings in the decks of the vessel as from a horrid furnace. The slaves would often be seized with delirium or with despair, or would lie in a swoon until death, as an angel of mercy, would deliver them from their tyrants. Did a slave disturb the vessel by sobbing, gags of a peculiar construction were brought into use. If water gave

out on the passage, or, if a storm overtook the slave-ship loaded down with its cargo, moans of unutterable anguish could not be prevented, or, if, as might happen, a peculiar pestilence broke out among the suffering and the dying chained in their places, and in some cases to the dead in whom dissolution had already commenced, the scene would become too woful to describe. For one reason and another hundreds of thousands of slaves found a grave in the waters of the ocean. One eighth to one fourth of the cargoes of slaves may be said, on the average, to have perished on the vessels. When the enslaved arrived in port they would sometimes be filled with agony and terror as they realized that they were to be sold into life-long bondage. The horrors of the scene would only be exceeded by its wickedness! No wonder that Madison should speak of the slave-trade as an “infernal traffic";—that Jefferson should feel indignant with the British Crown for its responsibility for man-stealing and the trade in human flesh and blood!

It may here be incidentally remarked that African slavery was first introduced into South America at the instance of Las Casas, a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, who possibly hoped that negro slavery would at least take the place of the well-nigh indescribable, the appalling,-enslavement by the Spaniards of the vast hordes of Indians who were dying in numbers which might seem incredible if they were here stated. Las Casas, before his death became to some degree enlightened respecting the unutterable horrors of the slave-trade and sadly repented of the error which he had committed in taking part in the work of introducing a new system of human bondage into South America. It is hardly historically correct to say that he was the only one responsible for the infamous business. The monarchs of Spain at different periods, had at least

to some extent encouraged the introduction of negroes into the part of the new world scourged by their tyranny. In 1518, the Jeronimite Order of the Roman Catholic Church had recommended that licenses should be given to the people of Hispaniola or to other persons, to bring negroes to Hispaniola. From a letter of theirs one may infer that even before the year 1518 they had sent to Spain a similar recommendation. Fray Bernardino de Manzanedo, sent to Spain by his Order, not only recommended that negro slavery should be introduced, but added especially that as many negro women should be sent as negro men.* Although it has been said that at least one distinguished ecclesiastic,-a man connected with the Inquisition-disapproved of the business, and although a time was to come when from the Papal throne denunciations in Latin were to be uttered against the sin of man's enslaving his fellow-man,—yet Las Casas' project respecting introducing African slaves was ap proved by powerful ecclesiastics. Pope Martin V. gave his approval to the traffic-a traffic which, in justice it should be said, was probably but little understood by the Roman Pontiff. The Spanish Crown gave to a man named De Brasa a license to carry on the slave business, who in his turn sold the license to some Genoese merchants, who were soon unable to supply the large demand in Cuba, Jamaica, San Juan and Hispaniola and on the South American coast. The trade being found to be very profitable, some Dutchmen entered the business. On May 22d, 1620, a Dutch vessel landed twenty slaves on Virginian soil. In time slavery was introduced into all the colonies which were to sever themselves from the

* See "The Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen," by Arthur Helps, 1848, p. 272–3, and "Coleccion de Muñoz," tomo 76, from which ancient letters are quoted.

British Crown. Queen Elizabeth was a partner in the second voyage of the first English captain of a slave vessel. James I. and Charles II. chartered companies to deal in slaves. Of the first company chartered by Charles II., the Duke of York was President. To the second African company which he chartered he as well as the Duke subscribed. After the Stuarts were expelled from Great Britain the nefarious business was still continued. In 1713, at the peace of Utrecht, England insisted that she should have the monopoly of the slavetrade with the Spanish West Indies. The English government agreed by treaty with the King of Spain * to bring into the West Indies of America belonging to his Catholic Majesty, in the space of thirty years, 144,000 negroes at the rate of 4,800 a year, at a fixed rate of duty, with the right to import any further number at a lower rate. As nearly all the coast watered by the Gulf of Mexico was claimed by the Spanish throne, England soon undertook to stock with slaves what was one day to be the southern part of the United States. It is calculated that the English ships transported between the year 1700 and 1750, 1,500,000 colored people, of whom, however, a good many met with a premature death. In 1763, it has been calculated that in North America there were about 300,000 people of color. The slave dealer's profits were very large. At the commencement of the nineteenth century a slave could be captured with often little cost to the slave-dealer, or bought on the coast of Africa for about ten dollars. A schooner of even ninety tons could carry two hundred and twenty colored people in her hold-and of course a bigger vessel a larger number. Each negro that survived the voyage could be sold in Cuba, or in certain harbors of North or South America

"The War of American Independence, 1775-1783," by J. M. Ludlow.