tedious to mention here.

According to an act of Virginia, (4 Anne, ch. 49. sec. 37. p. 227.)
"after proclamation is issued against slaves that run away and lie out,
it is lawful for any person whatsoever, _to kill and destroy such
slaves, by such ways and means as he, she, or they, shall think fit_,
without accusation or impeachment of any crime for the same," &c. And
lest private interest should incline the planter to mercy, (to which we
must suppose such people can have no other inducement) it is provided
and enacted in the succeeding clause, (No 28.) "That for _every slave
killed_, in pursuance of this act, or _put to death by law_, the master
or owner of such slave _shall be paid by the public_."

Also by an act of Virginia, (9 Geo. I. ch. 4. sect. 18. p. 343.) it is
ordained, "That, where any slave shall hereafter be found notoriously
guilty of going abroad in the night, or running away, and lying out, and
cannot be reclaimed from _such_ disorderly courses by the common method
of punishment, it shall and may be lawful to and for the court of the
county, upon complaint and proof thereof to them made by the owner of
such slave, to order and direct every such slave to be punished by
_dismembering, or any other_ way, not touching life, as the said county
court _shall think fit_."

I have already given examples enough of the horrid cruelties which are
sometimes _thought fit_ on such occasions. But if the innocent and most
natural act of "_running away_" from intolerable tyranny, deserves such
relentless severity, what kind of punishment have these law-makers
themselves to expect hereafter, on account of their own enormous
offences! Alas! to look for mercy (without a timely repentance) will
only be another instance of their gross injustice! "_Having their
consciences seared with a hot iron_," they seem to have lost all
apprehensions that their slaves are men, for they scruple not to number
them with beasts. See an act of Barbadoes, (No 333. p. 128.) intituled,
"An act for the better regulating of _outcries_ in open market:" here we
read of "_Negroes, cattle, coppers, and stills, and other chattels_,
brought by execution to open market to be outcried, and these (as if all
of equal importance) are ranged together _in great lots or numbers to be
sold_."

--Page 70. In the 329th act of Barbadoes, (p. 122.) it is asserted, that
"brutish slaves deserve not, for the baseness of their condition, to _be
tried by a legal tri