indirectly, from any part of Africa or the West Indies, to cause such
slave to be immediately apprehended and transported out of the
commonwealth [Edit. of 1794. c. 164.]. Such is the rise, progress, and
present foundation of slavery in Virginia, so far as I have been able to
trace it. The present number of slaves in Virginia, is immense, as
appears by the census taken in 1791, amounting to no less than 292,427
souls: nearly two-fifths of the whole population of the
commonwealth.[13] We may console ourselves with the hope that this
proportion will not increase, the further importation of slaves being
prohibited, whilst the free migrations of white people hither is
encouraged. But this hope affords no other relief from the evil of
slavery, than a diminution of those apprehensions which are naturally
excited by the detention of so large a number of oppressed individuals
among us, and the possibility that they may one day be roused to an
attempt to shake off their chains.

[Footnote 11: Among the Israelites, according to the Mosaical law, "If a
man smote his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he died under his
hand, he should surely be punished--notwithstanding if he continue a day
or two, he should not be punished [Exod. c. 21]:" for, saith the text,
he is _his money_. Our legislators appear to have adopted the reason of
the latter clause, without the humanity of the former part of the law.]

[Footnote 12: Hannah and other Indians, against Davis.--Since this
adjudication, I have met with a manuscript act of assembly made in 1691
c. 9 entitled, "An Act for a free Trade with Indians," the enacting
clause of which is in the very words of the act of 1705. c. 52. A
similar title to an act of that session occurs in the edition of 1733.
p. 94. and the chapter is numbered as in the manuscript. If this
manuscript be authentic (which there is some reason to presume, it being
copied in some blank leaves at the end of Purvis's edition, and
apparently written about the time of the passage of the act), it would
seem that no Indians brought into Virginia for more than a century, nor
any of their descendents, can be retained in slavery in this
commonwealth.]

[Footnote 13: Although it be true that the number of slaves in the
_whole_ state bears the proportion of 292,427, to 747,610, the whole
number of souls in the state, that is, nearly as _two_ to _five_; yet
this proportion is by no means _uniform_ throughout the state. In the
f