possessions
in America, particularly the islands, opened a trade between Africa and
America for the sale of Negroes, about the year 1508. The expedient of
having slaves for labour was not long peculiar to the Spaniards, being
afterwards adopted by other European colonies [Hargrave, ib.]: and
though some attempts have been made to stop its progress in most of the
United States, and several of them have the fairest prospects of success
in attempting the extirpation of it, yet is others, it hath taken such
deep root, as to require the most strenuous exertions to eradicate it.

[Footnote 9: See the various tracts on this subject, by Granville
Sharpe, Esq. of London.]

[Footnote 10: The condition of a _villein_ had most of the incidents I
have before described in giving the idea of _slavery_, in general. His
services were uncertain and indeterminate, such as his lord thought fit
to require; or as some of our ancient writers express it, he knew not in
the evening what he was to do in the morning, he was bound to do
whatever he was commanded. He was liable to beating, imprisonment, and
every other chastisement his lord could devise, except killing and
maiming. He was incapable of acquiring property for his own benefit; he
was himself the subject of property; as such saleable and transmissible.
If he was a villein regardant he passed with the land to which he was
annexed, but might be severed at the will of his lord; if he was a
villein in gross, he was an hereditament, or a chattel real, according
to his lord's interest; being descendible to the heir, where the lord
was absolute _owner_, and transmissible to the executor where the lord
had only a term of years in him. Lastly, the slavery extended to the
issue, if the father was a villein, our law deriving the condition of
the child from that of the father, contrary to the Roman law, in which
the rule was, _partus sequitur ventum_. Hargrave's Case of Negroe
Somerset, page 26 and 27.

The same writer refers the origin of vassalage in England, principally
to the wars between the British, Saxon, Danish, and Norman nations,
contending for the sovereignty of that country, in opposition to the
opinion of judge Fitzherbert, who supposes villeinage to have commenced
at the conquest. Ib. 27, 28. And this he proves from Spelman and other
antiquaries. Ib. The writ _de nativo habendo_, by which the lord was
enabled to recover his villein that had absconded from him, creates a
presumpti