d from owning real property
in fee simple or fee tail. Having stripped the Negro of the few rights
he possessed, the General Court, during the same year, went on to
reduce him to absolute property, and levied an impost-tax of ten
pounds upon every Negro imported into the colony, to remain in force
for seven years.

In 1754 an Act provided, that in the borough of Elizabeth any white
servant or servants, slave or slaves, which shall "be brought before
the Mayor, &c., by their masters or other inhabitant of the Borough,
for any misdemeanor rude or disorderly behavior, may be committed to
the workhouse to hard labor and receive correction not exceeding
thirty lashes."[479] This Act was purely local in character, and
indiscriminate in its application to every class of servants. It was
nothing more than a police regulation, and as such was a wholesome
law.

In 1768 the General Court passed _An Act to regulate the trial of
slaves for murder and other crimes and to repeal so much of an act,
&c_. Sections one and two provided for the trial of slaves by the
ordinary higher criminal courts. Section three provided that the
expenses incurred in the execution of slaves should be levied upon all
the owners of able-bodied slaves in the county, by order of the
justices presiding at the trial. Section four repealed sections four,
five, six, and seven of the Act of 1713. This was significant. It
portended a better feeling toward the Negroes, and illumined the dark
horizon of slavery with the distant light of hope. A strong feeling
in favor of better treatment for Negro slaves made itself manifest at
this time. When the Quaker found the prejudice against himself
subsiding, he turned, like a good Samaritan, to pour the wine of human
sympathy into the lacerated feelings of the Negro. Private instruction
was given to them in many parts of Jersey. The gospel was expounded to
them in its beauty and simplicity, and produced its good fruit in
better lives.

The next year, 1769, a mercenary spirit inspired and secured the
passage of another Act levying a tax upon imported slaves, and
requiring persons manumitting slaves to give better securities. It
reads,--

"Whereas duties on the importation of negroes in several of
the neighboring colonies hath, on experience, been found
beneficial in the introduction of sober industrious
foreigners, to settle under his Majesty's allegiance, and
the promoting a spirit of industry