bill, having expired by its limitation, was re-enacted. Thus much for the acts of Assembly.[1]
To return to an earlier period. In the year 1712, the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia addressed an epistle to the Yearly Meeting of Friends in London, stating that for a number of years they had been seriously concerned on account of the importation and trade in slaves, and of the detention of them and their posterity "in bondage without any limitation or time of redemption from that condition;" that the meeting, by its advice, had endeavored, and in some degree succeeded in discouraging the traffic; yet, that as "settlements increased so other traders nocked in among them over whom they had no Gospel authority," and that the number of negroes was thereby greatly increased in the province; they desired that the London Yearly Meeting would consult with Friends in the other colonies who were more engaged in
- ↑ The following is a list of all the Acts, prior to the Revolution, and is somewhat fuller than that in the text. They are those of 1705, 1710-11, 1712, 1715, 1717-18, 1720, 1722, 1725-6, 1729, 1761,
1768, and 1773,—which last was made perpetual.
The Acts of date subsequent to 1705, are but modifications of the one of that year; for, when through the bigoted policy of the mother country, a repeal took place, another, so soon as expediency allowed, was passed by the Assembly. The objection on the part of the superior authorities was not because of the spirit of some of the provisions of the Acts, which might have been better, but sprang from a determination to force upon the Province an institution to which it was averse.
Our author mistakes in supposing a law was passed in 1711; that to which he alludes, but regrets he has not seen, was the one of 1712, of the main feature of which he seems to have been aware.
A fuller reference to these enactments will be found in a note, at p. 415.—Editor.
