this act, for the purpose of selling
them as slaves, as afore said, he or they shall forfeit and pay, for
each and every person, so received on board, transported, or sold as
afore said, the sum of two hundred dollars, to be recovered in any
court of the United States, proper to try the same, the one moiety
thereof, to the use of the United States, and the other moiety to the
use of such person or persons, who shall sue for and prosecute the
same.

FREDERICK AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG,
_Speaker of the House of Representatives_.
JOHN ADAMS,
_Vice President of the United States,
and President of the Senate_.

Approved--March the twenty second, 1794,

Go. Washington,
_President of the United States_.

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN
CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.[8]

The memorial and petition of the Delegates from the several Societies,
formed in different parts of the United States, for promoting the
abolition of slavery, in Convention assembled at Philadelphia, on the
first day of January, 1794.

_Respectfully shew_,

THAT your memorialists, having been appointed, by various Societies,
in different parts of the Union, for the benevolent purpose of
endeavouring to alleviate or suppress some of the miseries of their
fellow-creatures, deem it their duty to approach the Congress of the
United States with a respectful representation of certain evils,--the
unauthorised acts of a few, but injurious to the interest and
reputation of all.

America, dignified by being the first in modern times, to assert and
defend the equal rights of man, suffers her fame to be tarnished and
her example to be weakened, by a cruel commerce, carried on from some
of her ports, for the supply of foreign nations with African slaves.

To enumerate the horrors incident to this inhuman traffic, of which
all the worst passions of mankind form the principal materials, would
be unnecessary, when we offer to prove its existence.

Nor is it requisite to consume much of your valuable time in the
endeavour to prove it a national injury.

While it exposes the lives and the morals of our seamen to peculiar
danger, it renders all complaints of retaliation unjust; for those who
deprive others of their liberty, for the benefit o