qualification and manner of proceeding thereon. Their duty and power to acquit or condemn. How sentence to be given and execution done. Punishment for rape. For stealing. Negroes not allowed to carry a gun or other arms. Nor to meet above four in company on penalty of whipping.-Prov. L. c. 135. c. 30. An act to prevent the importation of Indian slaves. "Whereas the importation of Indian slaves from Carolina or other places hath been observed to give the Indians of this province some umbrage for suspicion and dissatisfaction. Be it, &c., that if after the twenty-fifth day of March, in the year 1706, any person shall import or cause to be imported, any Indian slaves or servants whatsoever, from any province or colony in America into this province, by land or water, such only and their children (if any) excepted as for the space of one year before such importation shall be proven to have been menial servants in the family of the importer, and are brought in together with the importer's family, every such slave or servant so here landed shall be forfeited to the Government and shall be either set at liberty or otherwise disposed of, as the Governor and council shall see cause."

"Provided always that no such Indian slave as deserting his master's service elsewhere, (that shall fly into this Province,) shall be understood or be construed to be comprehended within this act."-Prov. L. c. 136.

c. 39. An act about arrests and making debtors pay by servitude.-Prov. L. c. 165.

c. 50. An act for raising revenue. An import duty is laid on negroes, among other merchandise specified.—Prov. L.

c. 166.

1710, c. 14. An act laying a duty on negroes, wine, rum, and other spirits. Repealed in council, 1713.-Prov. L. c.

172.

1711-12, c. 10. An act to prevent the importation of negroes and Indians into this Province. Lays a prohibitory duty on negroes and Indians; allows a drawback or re-exportation

These acts of 1705-chapters 26, 29, 30, 39, appear to have been enacted in 1701, but disallowed by the king's council.

in twenty days; an indulgence to travellers, of two slaves each; runaways, if taken back within twenty days, to be free of duty; otherwise, if not claimed within twelve months, they were to be sold. Repealed by the Queen's council.-Prov. L. c. 183; (see ante, p. 209, note from Burge.)1

1714, c. 19. An act for laying a duty on negroes imported into this Province. Repealed in council, 1719.--Prov. L. c. 209.

1717, c. 5. An act for continuing a duty on negroes brought into this Province. "Expired,"-Prov. L. c. 222.

1721, c. 1. In this act, which regulates public houses, &c., in s. 4, negroe or Indian servants are spoken of, but not slaves; the margin has the term slaves.-Prov. L. c. 23.

c. 2. Act respecting fires, last section, "and if such offender be a negro or Indian slave he shall, instead of imprisonment, be publicly whipped at the discretion of the magistrate." -Prov. L. c. 235.

1721-2, c. 1. An act for imposing a duty on persons convicted of heinous crimes and imported into this province as servants or otherwise. Prov. L. c. 237. Repealed, 1729, c. 8, s. 21.

1722, c. 3. An act for laying a duty on negroes imported into this Province. "Expired."-Prov. L. c. 239.

1725, c. 1. Similar title. "Expired."-Prov. L. c. 276.

c. 4. An act for the better regulating of negroes in this Province. Captions :-Value of negro put to death for crime, how allowed to owner. Masters importing negroes to report them to collector. Whoever lets free any negroe shall give security. The third section enacts, "and whereas it is found by experience that free negroes are an idle, sloathful people, and often prove burthensom to the neighborhood, and afford ill examples to other negroes, Therefore be it enacted, &c., That if any master or mistress shall discharge or set free any negroe, he or she" shall give recognizance &c., "but until such recogni

1 In 1712 to a general petition for the emancipation of negro slaves by law, the legislature of Pennsylvania answered that 'it was neither just nor convenient to set them at liberty.'-3 Banc. 408.

zance is given such negroes shall not be deemed free." The security shall be given for negroes set free by will, or the said negroes shall not be free." That if any free negroe, fit to work, shall neglect so to do and loiter and misspend his or her time, or wander from place to place, any two Magistrates next adjoining are hereby impowered and required to bind out to service, such negroe, from year to year, as to them may seem meet."Slaves under the age of twenty-one to be bound out.-No free negro or mulatto to harbor or entertain any negro, Indian or mulatto slave,-nor trade with any such.--" That if any free negroe or mulattoe shall refuse or be unable to pay his or her Fine or Forfeiture as aforesaid, it shall and may be lawful to and for the Justice before whom such matter is tried to order Satisfaction by Servitude." "That no minister, pastor or magistrate, or other person whatsoever, who, according to the laws of this province, usually join people in marriage, shall upon any pretence whatsoever join in marriage, any negroe with any white person, on the penalty of one hundred pounds." Whites and blacks cohabiting-the white shall pay a fine, and the black be sold as a servant. The remaining sections prescribe penalties for negroes absent from home at night, &c. Prov. L. c. 288. 1729, c. 5. An act for laying a duty on negroes imported, dc., rep. by 1761, c. 10, s. 16.-Prov. L. c. 297.

c. 8. An act laying a duty on Forreigners and Irish servants &c., imported into this Province-repealed by 1729, 2d sess., c. 7, s. 9.-Prov. L. c. 298.

1742, c. 3. An act imposing a duty on persons convicted of heinous crimes brought into this province, and not warranted by the laws of Great Britain, &c. Repealed by the royal council.

1761, c. 10. Supplementary to an act of 1729, c. 5. A similar law, 1767-8, c. 3. 1 Laws of the Commonwealth of Pa. c. 428, 429.

1767-8, c. 3, continues the last above, "expired."

1771, c. 8. An act supplementary to an act of 1770, respecting servants. 1 Laws Commonw. Pa. c. 636.

1773, c. 11. An act making perpetual the act intituled, An

act for laying a duty on negroes and mulatto slaves, &c., and laying an additional duty on the said slaves. 1 Commonw. Laws, c. 692, (repealed 1780. Ibid. c. 881.)

1776, June 14.-The Provincial Congress instructed their delegates in the Continental Congress to confer with the other colonies in political separation from Great Britain, “reserving to the people of this colony the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government of the same."-Votes and Proceedings, vol. vi., 740.

$227. LEGISLATION OF DELAWARE,

The territory occupied by the State of Delaware was first occupied by the Dutch. Their claim had always been denied by the English, though on the grant of New Netherlands to the Duke of York, it was occupied by his representatives as a portion of his proprietary dominion. In 1682, Aug. 21, the Duke ceded his territory to Penn, and it became included in his government. See the "Act of Union," in Votes and Proceedings, vol. i., p. 3, and ante p. 286, note.-Delaware Laws, ed. 1797, c. 5.

In 1703, Penn surrendered the old form of government, and gave the Delaware Counties the option of a separate administration, under "the Charter of Privileges," having a separate legislature, though one Governor and Council with Pennsylvania.-Del. Laws, ed. 1797, appendix.

1721. An act for the trial of Negroes. Del. L. c. 43. Sec. 1. Two justices and six freeholders empowered to try "negro or mulatto slaves" accused of heinous offences specified. 2. Such court may determine and order execution. When slaves are put to death two-thirds of value to be paid to owner. 3, 4.

'The first settlements in this vicinity were by the Swedes and Danes, before the year 1638. Stevens, in Hist. of Georgia, p. 288, says that in the Swedish and German colonies, founded on the Delaware by Gustavus Adolphus, it was held "not lawful to buy or keep slaves," but gives no authority. In a translation of the Danish Laws of Christian V., published in London, 1756, "for the use of the Danish colonies in America," ch. xii. of Book iii. is omitted, since "it regards vileanage, consequently of no use in the American islands." But ch. xiv., Of Bondsmen, is given in full, though such as are there described are bound to the soil, though hereditary, and could not be sold or removed by the lord. In Book iii. ch. ii., Of Privileges, "Whoever enjoys the privilege of power, of life or limb on his servants, or ecclesiastical or civil patronage, or any other privilege granted by the king, shall use it, and shall not be deprived of it on account of abuse."

Duties of Sheriffs, &c. 5. Punishment for rape of white woman-standing on pillory and cutting off both ears. 6, 7. Slaves forbid to carry arms; negroes forbid meeting in companies.

1721. An act against adultery and fornication.-Del. L., c. 44, sec. 5. Servant women having bastards-to serve another year. 9. Penalty on white women that shall bear mulatto children. The child to serve under appointment of county court, until the age of thirty-one years. (Repealed 1795, D. L., c. 71.) 10. Penalty on white men committing fornication with negro or mulatto women. (Fines and corporal punishment, for fornication and bastardy, abrogated, 1795, D. L., c. 108, s. 7.)

1739. An act imposing a duty on persons convicted of heinous crimes, and to prevent poor and impotent persons being imported, &c.-D. L., c. 66.

An act for the better regulation of servants and slaves within this Government.-D. L., c. 77. Sec. 1. No indentured servant to be sold into another Government without the approbation of at least one justice, &c. 2. Nor assigned over unless before a justice. 3. Nor indentures taken, &c. 4-10. Police regulations regarding servants, similar to those of other colonies. 10. Whoever manumits a slave, to give security, &c. 11. The children of free negroes to be bound out if their parents do not maintain them. The remaining sections contain the ordinary police regulations for slaves.

1751. An act supplementary to the last.-D. L., c. 129.

1760. Another supplementary act, D. L., c. 170. Sec. 1. "Whereas the children of white women by negro or mulatto fathers, and the descendants of such children, and negroes entitled to their freedom, are frequently held and detained as servants or as slaves, by persons pretending to be their masters and mistresses, when they ought not by the laws of this government be so held and detained, and frequently are sold as slaves by such pretended masters or mistresses to persons who reside in other governments, with a fraudulent design to prevent their procuring proof of their being entitled to their freedom; and whereas the laws of this Government are defective in not pre