eings, their hearts
led them to the performance of many little deeds of kindness. They
discovered many noble attributes in the Negro character, and were not
backward in expressing their admiration. When summoned before a
justice, and fined for entertaining Negroes after nine o'clock, they
paid the penalty with a willingness and alacrity that alarmed the
slave-holding caste. This was regarded as treason. Some could not pay
the fine, and, hence, went free. The new Act intended to remedy this.
It was as follows:--

"An Act to prevent the entertainment of Negroes, &c.

"Whereas, there is a law in this colony to suppress any
persons from entertaining of negro slaves or Indian servants
that are not their own, in their houses, or unlawfully
letting them have strong drink, whereby they were damnified,
such persons were to pay a fine of five shillings, and so by
that means go unpunished, there being no provision made [of]
what corporeal punishment they should have, if they have not
wherewith to pay:

"Therefore, it is now enacted, that any such delinquent that
shall so offend, if he or she shall not have or procure the
sum of ten shillings for each defect, to be paid down before
the authority before whom he or she hath been legally
convicted, he or she shall be by order of said authority,
publicly whipped upon their naked back, not exceeding ten
stripes; any act to the contrary, notwithstanding. "[456]

It is certain that what little anti-slavery sentiment there was in the
British colonies in North America during the first century of their
existence received no encouragement from Parliament. From the
beginning, the plantations in this new world in the West were regarded
as the hotbeds in which slavery would thrive, and bring forth abundant
fruit, to the great gain of the English government. All the
appointments made by the crown were expected to be in harmony with the
plans to be carried out in the colonies. From the settlement of
Jamestown down to the breaking out of the war, and the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, not a single one of the royal governors
ever suffered his sense of duty to the crowned heads to be warped by
local views on "the right of slavery." The Board of Trade was
untiring in its attention to the colonies. And no subject occupied
greater space in the correspondence of that colossal institution than
slavery. The f