ding century to conclude that, as the system had
risen, flourished, and fallen in Massachusetts, New York, and
Pennsylvania, and as South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland were
apparently following in the same legislative path, the next generation
would in all probability witness the last throes of the system on our
soil.

To be sure, the problem had its uncertain quantities. The motives of the
law-makers in South Carolina and Pennsylvania were dangerously
different; the century of industrial expansion was slowly dawning and
awakening that vast economic revolution in which American slavery was to
play so prominent and fatal a role; and, finally, there were already in
the South faint signs of a changing moral attitude toward slavery, which
would no longer regard the system as a temporary makeshift, but rather
as a permanent though perhaps unfortunate necessity. With regard to the
slave-trade, however, there appeared to be substantial unity of opinion;
and there were, in 1787, few things to indicate that a cargo of five
hundred African slaves would openly be landed in Georgia in 1860.

24. ~The Condition of the Slave-Trade.~ In 1760 England, the chief
slave-trading nation, was sending on an average to Africa 163 ships
annually, with a tonnage of 18,000 tons, carrying exports to the value
of L163,818. Only about twenty of these ships regularly returned to
England. Most of them carried slaves to the West Indies, and returned
laden with sugar and other products. Thus may be formed some idea of the
size and importance of the slave-trade at that time, although for a
complete view we must add to this the trade under the French,
Portuguese, Dutch, and Americans. The trade fell off somewhat toward
1770, but was flourishing again when the Revolution brought a sharp and
serious check upon it, bringing down the number of English slavers,
clearing, from 167 in 1774 to 28 in 1779, and the tonnage from 17,218 to
3,475 tons. After the war the trade gradually recovered, and by 1786 had
reached nearly its former extent. In 1783 the British West Indies
received 16,208 Negroes from Africa, and by 1787 the importation had
increased to 21,023. In this latter year it was estimated that the
British were taking annually from Africa 38,000 slaves; the French,
20,000; the Portuguese, 10,000; the Dutch and Danes, 6,000; a total of
74,000. Manchester alone sent L180,000 annually in goods to Africa in
exchange for Negroes.[1]

25. ~The Slave-Tr