militia," are ordered to work on the fortification for repairing the
same, to be under the command of the captains of the wards they
inhabit. And L100 to be raised for the fortifications.

1722, February 20th.--A law passed by the common council of New York,
"restraining slaves, negroes, and Indians from gaming with moneys." If
found gaming with any sort of money, "copper pennies, copper
halfpence, or copper farthings," they shall be publickly whipped at
the publick whipping-post of this city, at the discretion of the
mayor, recorder, and aldermen, or any one of them, unless the owner
pay to the church wardens for the poor, 3s.

1731, November 18th--If more than three negro, mulatto, or Indian
slaves assemble on Sunday and play or make noise, (or at any other
time at any place from their master's service,) they are to be
publickly whipped fifteen lashes at the publick whipping-post.

* * * * *

NEW YORK.

Negro slavery, a favorite measure with England, was rapidly extending
its baneful influence in the colonies. The American Register, of 1769,
gives the number of negroes brought in slavery from the coast of
Africa, between Cape Blanco and the river Congo, by different nations
in one year, thus: Great Britain, 53,100; British Americans, 6,300;
France, 23,520; Holland, 11,300; Portugal, 1,700; Denmark, 1,200;
in all, 104,100, bought by barter for European and Indian
manufacturers,--L15 sterling being the average price given for each
negro. Thus we see that more than one half of the wretches who were
kidnapped, or torn by force from their homes by the agents of European
merchants (for such those who supply the market must be considered),
were sacrificed to the cupidity of the merchants of Great Britain; the
traffic encouraged by the government at the same time that the boast
is sounded through the world, that the moment a slave touches the
sacred soil, governed by those who encourage the slavemakers, and
inhabited by those who revel in the profits derived from murder, he is
free. Somerset, the negro, is liberated by the court of king's bench,
in 1772, and the world is filled with the fame of English justice and
humanity! James Grahame tells us that Somerset's case was not the
first in which the judges of Great Britain counteracted in one or two
cases the practical inhumanity of the government and the people: he
says, that in 1762, his grandfather, Thomas Grahame, judge of the
admiralt