d for the Negro.[13]

The practice adopted was like the practice in cases of alleged
villenage in England. It was recognized that slavery might exist in
Nova Scotia, but it was made as difficult as possible for the master
to succeed on the facts. Except the act already mentioned there was no
statute recognizing slavery and an attempt in 1787 to incorporate such
a recognition in the statute law failed of success by a large
majority. The existing act, too, was given what seems a very forced
and unnatural interpretation so as to emasculate it of any authority
in that regard.

Salter Sampson Blowers, the Attorney General, fully agreed with the
Chief Justice's plan. On one occasion he threatened to prosecute a
person for sending a Negro out of the province against his will.[14]
The Negro managed to get back and the master acknowledged his right,
so that no proceedings were necessary. After a number of verdicts for
the alleged slaves, masters were generally very willing to enter into
articles whereby the slave after serving faithfully for a fixed number
of years was given his freedom.

After Blowers became Chief Justice, 1797,[15] he continued Chief
Justice Strange's practice with marked results. In one case of which
he tells where he had discharged a black woman from the Annapolis gaol
on habeas corpus and an action had been brought, the plaintiff proved
that he had bought her in New York; but the Chief Justice held that he
had not proved the right of the seller so to dispose of her and
directed the jury to find for the defendant which they promptly did.

Slavery continued, however. Almost every year we find records of
sales, advertisements for runaway slaves, bequests of slaves, &c, till
almost the end of the first decade of the 19th century, the latest
known bill of sale is dated March 21, 1807 and transfers a "Negro
Woman named Nelly of the age of twenty five or thereabout." It was,
however, decadent and from about the beginning of the 19th century was
quite as much to the advantage of the Negro in many cases as that of
the master.

A final effort to legalize slavery in Nova Scotia was made in 1808.
Mr. Warwick, member for Digby Township, presented a petition from John
Taylor and other slave owners setting up that the doubts entertained
by the courts rendered their property useless and that the slaves were
deserting and defying their masters. They asked for an act securing
them their property or indemnifying them fo