Increase Mather, inclined to the opinion that he should be slain for his father's sins, after the example of the children of Achan and Agag;[12] but the authorities probably concluded that his deportation would be a more profitable, as well as a harsher punishment. These shocking incidents will no longer appear incredible to the reader, when he is informed that the same magistrates sold and transported into foreign slavery two English children, one of them a girl, for attending a Quaker meeting;[13] while the adult ladies present were fined £10 each, and whipped.[14] [Footnote 8: Moore's Slavery in Mass., p. 32.] [Footnote 9: Ibid., p. 38.] [Footnote 10: Ibid., p. 47.] [Footnote 11: On the whole of above, see Moore, pp. 33-46.] [Footnote 12: Moore, p. 45.] [Footnote 13: Ibid., pp. 33, 34.] [Footnote 14: The following passage, from a late valuable letter of Thomas P. Devereux, Esq., of Halifax County, North Carolina, to the Governor of that State, gives us one _item_ of evidence as to the extent of this abominable usage of the "Pilgrim Fathers." See Raleigh Daily Sentinel, Dec. 12th, 1866: "It is worthy of note that, amongst my slaves, there was a large intermixture of Indian blood from the Pequots, brought from Massachusetts and sold in North Carolina, in the early part of the 18th century, and, up to the act of emancipation, I could, with tolerable certainty, detect the mixed race by their addiction to liquor and its effects upon them."] In pleasing contrast with these enormities, stands the contemporaneous legislation of the Colony of Virginia touching its Indian neighbours. By three acts, 1655 to 1657, the colonists were strictly forbidden to trespass upon the lands of the Indians, or to dispossess them of their homes even by purchase. Slaying an Indian for his trespass was prohibited. The Indians, provided they were not armed, were authorized to pass freely through the several settlements, for trading, fishing, and gathering wild fruits. It was forbidden to enslave or deport any Indian, no matter under what circumstances he was captured; and Indian apprentices or servants for a term of years could only be held as such by authority of their parents, or if they had none, of the magistrates.[15] Their careful training in Christianity was enjoined, and at the end of their terms, their discharge, with wages, was secured by law. [Footnote 15: Herring, Stat. at Large, vol. i., pp. 395, 415, 456.]