and the bill became law.[7]

Simcoe, as was his duty, reported to Henry Dundas afterwards Lord
Melville, Secretary of State for the Home Department concerning this
Act September 28, 1793. Simcoe had discovered that there was much
resistance to the slave law. There were many plausible arguments of
the demand for labor and the difficulty of obtaining "Servants to
cultivate Lands." "Some possessed of Negroes," said he, "knowing that
it was very questionable whether any subsisting Law did authorize
Slavery and having purchased several taken in war by the Indians at
small prices wished to reject the Bill entirely; others were desirous
to supply themselves by allowing the importation for two years. The
matter was finally settled by undertaking to secure the property
already obtained upon condition that an immediate stop should be put
to the importation and that Slavery should be gradually abolished."[8]

The Act recited that it was unjust that a people who enjoy freedom by
law should encourage the introduction of slaves, and that it was
highly expedient to abolish slavery in the province so far as it could
be done gradually without violating private property. It repealed the
Imperial Statute of 1790 so far as it related to Upper Canada, and to
enact that from and after the passing of the act "No Negro or other
person who shall come or be brought into this Province ... shall be
subject to the condition of a slave or to bounden involuntary service
for life." With that regard for property characteristic of the
English-speaking peoples, the act contained an important proviso
which continued the slavery of every "negro or other person subjected
to such service" who had been lawfully brought into the province. It
then enacted that every child born after the passing of the act, of a
Negro mother or other woman subjected to such service, should become
absolutely free on attaining the age of twenty-five, the master in the
meantime to provide "proper nourishment and cloathing" for the child,
but to be entitled to put him to work, all issue of such children to
be free whenever born. It further declared that any voluntary contract
of service or indenture should not be binding longer than nine years.
Upper Canada was the first British possession to provide by
legislation for the abolition of slavery.[9]

It will be seen that the statute did not put an end to slavery at
once. Those who were lawfully slaves remained slaves for life unles