I have spoken of slavery and the repeated attempts Rhode Island made to shake it off. The number of slaves was not large, and for the most part they were treated kindly. Still servitude implied degradation, and the habit of looking down upon human beings could not but react unfavorably upon the character and habits of the masters themselves. It was a softening of their lot that in the regular festivals the negroes had their share, their dances and their suppers, and even their elections, when they elected and installed their governor, and feasted luxuriously at the expense of their masters. CHAPTER XXX. COMMERCIAL GROWTH AND PROSPERITY OF RHODE ISLAND. Rhode Island came well prepared to her new duties. She had worked out in her own experience the most important problems of civil organization, rendering "unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Her legislation was the reflection of her culture, and her statute book the record of her progress in the science of self-government. Her colonial life had been a constant struggle with jealous neighbors who coveted her beautiful bay and detested her "soul liberty." Out of this struggle she came stronger and more resolute for the discipline it gave her, yet not without some marks of the strife. She had learned to apprehend danger from afar off and cultivate jealousy as a safeguard, and hence she sometimes as in her refusal to grant the impost duty, was guided by a keen sense of her rights as a sovereign state, rather than a deep conviction of her obligations as member of a confederation. Hence also, she had hesitated three years on the borders of union, and seen her sister states enter it one by one before she could bring herself to make over to a central government even those portions of authority which a central government could administer so much more in her interest than she. But she was wiser for the struggle, and full of resolution and hope entered boldly upon her new career. We have seen that Rhode Island began very early to seek her fortune on the water. Ship building was one of the earliest forms which her enterprise assumed. Already in March, 1790, the shipping of Providence alone consisted of nine ships, thirty-six brigs, forty-five sloops and twenty schooners, forming in all a tonnage of ten thousand five hundred and ninety. To man this commercial fleet the same town had a population of six thousand three hundred and eighty to draw from. Newport, though no longer holding the same position which she held before the war, was still an active seaport. The population of the whole State had risen to sixty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.