The preamble to the State Constitution of Virginia, drawn up by George Mason, and adopted by the Convention June 29th, 1776, was written by Thomas Jefferson. In the recital of grievances against Great Britain, which had prompted the commonwealth to assume its independence, this preamble contains the following words: "By prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us; those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of his negative, he had refused us permission to exclude by law."[24] Mr. Jefferson, long a leading member of the House of Burgesses, and most learned of all his contemporaries in the legislation of his country, certainly knew whereof he affirmed. His witness is more than confirmed by that of Mr. Madison,[25] who says: "The British Government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to this infernal traffick." Mr. Jefferson, in a passage which was expunged from the Declaration of Independence by New England votes in the Congress, strongly stated the same charge. And George Mason, perhaps the greatest and most influential of Virginians, next to Washington, reiterated the accusation with equal strength, in the speech in the Federal Convention, 1787, in which he urged the immediate prohibition of the slave trade by the United States. See Madison Papers, vol. iii., pp. 1388-1398. A learned Virginian antiquary has found, notwithstanding the destruction of the appropriate evidences, which will be explained anon, no less than twenty-eight several attempts made by the Burgesses to arrest the evil by their legislation, all of which were either suppressed or negatived by the proprietary or royal authority. A learned and pious Huguenot divine, having planted his family in the colony, in the first half of the last century, bears this testimony: "But our Assembly, foreseeing the ill consequences of importing such numbers among us, hath often attempted to lay a duty upon them which would amount to a prohibition, such as ten or twenty pounds a head; but no governor dare pass such a law, having instructions to the contrary from the Board of Trade at home. By this means they are forced upon us, whether we will or not. This plainly shows the African Company hath the advantage of the colonies, and may do as it pleases with the ministry."[26] These personal testimonies are recited the more carefully, because the Vandalism of the British officers at the Revolution annihilated that regular documentary evidence, to which the appeal might otherwise be made. Governor Dunmore first, and afterwards Colonel Tarleton and Earl Cornwallis, carried off and destroyed all the archives of the colony which they could seize, and among them the whole of the original journals of the House of Burgesses, except the volumes containing the proceedings of 1769 and 1772. The only sure knowledge which remains of those precious records is derived from other documents and fragmentary copies of some passages, found afterwards in the desks of a few citizens. The