until the Revolutionary War cloud broke over their homes.
There is more in the statement Mr. Bancroft makes than the casual
reader is likely to discern.

The men who founded Rhode Island, or Providence Plantation as it was
called early, were of the highest type of Christian gentlemen. They
held advanced ideas on civil government and religious liberty. They
realized, to the full, the enormity of the sinfulness of slavery; but
while they hesitated to strike down what many men pronounced a
necessary social evil, it grew to be an institution that governed more
than it could be governed. The institution was established. Slaves
were upon the farms, in the towns, and in the families, of those who
could afford to buy them. The population of the colony was small; and
to manumit the slaves in whom much money was invested, or to suddenly
cut off the supply from without, was more than the colonists felt able
to perform. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

For a half-century there was nothing done by the General Court to
check or suppress the slave-trade, though the Act of 1652 remained the
law of the colony. The trade was not extensive. No vessels from Africa
touched at Newport or Providence. The source of supply was Barbadoes;
and, occasionally, some came by land from other colonies. Little was
said for or against slavery during this period. It was a question
difficult to handle. The sentiment against it was almost unanimous. It
was an evil; but how to get rid of it, was the most important thing to
be considered. During this period of perplexity, there was an ominous
silence on slavery. The conservatism of the colonists produced the
opposite in the Negro population. They began to think and talk about
their "rights." The Act of 1652 had begun to bear fruit. At the
expiration of ten years' service, slaves began to demand their
freedom-papers. This set the entire Negro class in a state of
expectancy. Their eagerness for liberty was interpreted by the more
timid among the whites as the signal for disorder. A demand was made
for legislation that would curtail the personal liberties of the
Negroes in the evenings. It is well to produce the Act of Jan. 4,
1703, that the reader may see the similarity of the laws passed in the
New-England colonies against Negroes:--

"An Act to restrict negroes and Indians for walking in
unseasonable times in the night, and at other times not
allowable.

"Voted, Be it