9
lived in vain. In better times their counsels will be heard.
When the (lay comes, an(l come it smrely will, when, th ought
out this broad empire, not an aspiration shall go upto thethrone
of God, that does not emanate from a freeman's heart, they
will live in story, the apostles of that hallowed reign of peace,
fandl men will quote their names to adorn the hiohest lessons of
wisdom, and enforce, by great examples, the practice of high and
virtuous actions.
  With the increase of the number of slaves, became more ap-
parent the injuries inflicted by slavery itself, upon every inter-
est associated with it. The voice of reason and humanity be-
gan to be listened to, when that of interest Uttered its sounds in
unison. What in(livi(luals had long foreseen, some of our coin-
munities began at length to apprehend and to lprovidle against.
A duty on the importation of slaves was laid by New York, in
1753, by Pennsylvania, in 1762, and by New Jersey, in 1769.
Virginia, the first to introduce them, was also the earliest in set-
ting the example of their exclusion. In 1778, in the midst of
civil war, she pult upon the pages of her history, an en during
record of her respect for those rights of other men, for which
she was freely pouring out her own blood, by probibiting the
introduction of slaves into any of her ports. In 1780, Peninsvl-
vania passed a law for the gradual abolition of slavery, which
has the merit of being the earliest legislative proceeding of the
kind in any country. All the states, north and east of Mary-
land, have since passed similar laws. On the azdoption of the
Federal Constitution, Congress was authorized to prohibit, at
the end of twenty years, the importation of' negroes into any
part of the United States; and the power was exercised at the
amppointed time. No slaves have, therefore, been legally brought
into this nation since the year 180S.
  After the close of our revolutionary war, many negroes who
fled from their masters, and sought protection with the British
armies (luring its progress, were scattered through the Bahama
Islands, and Nova Scotia. Others had foundl their way to Ellg.
land. In 1787, a private company in Enuland sent four hun-
dlre(d of thein, with their own consent, to Sierra Leone, on the
western coast of Africa. About five years afterwards, twelve
hundred of those from Nova Scotia were transported to Sierra
Leone, by the British government. The Maroons, from Jamai-
ca, were remnovel thither in 1805. The hostility of the French,
the opposition of the natives, the selection of a situation which
proved to he unfortunate in many local particulars, and perhaps
more than either, the heterogeneous materials of which that set-
tlement was composed, for somne years, retarded its growth. All
these difficulties, however, have been surmounted.  Ihat colo-
ny contains more than twenty thousand souls, of whow wore
                             B