The war bore hardly upon the resources of the Colony. A French fleet was expected on the coast. Scouts were constantly on the look-out. Block Island was garrisoned. The fleet did not come, but one incident occurred which, though upon a small scale, brought out in strong colors the maritime spirit of the Colony. A French privateer in a cruise off Block Island took a sloop laden with provisions. The news reached the Governor the next day. In two hours two sloops, manned by one hundred and twenty volunteers, and commanded by Captain John Wanton, were on their way in pursuit of the enemy, and in less than three hours more took her, recaptured her prize and brought both safe into Newport. The current of our history still continues to flow in a narrow channel. Each new session of the Assembly added to the body of the laws and met new wants. Newport had no charter. One was granted her by special statute. The other towns held theirs by grants of the Assembly. The subject of a court of chancery began to attract attention in 1705, but was held to be premature, and its duties were still left for the present with the Assembly. Boundary questions still continued to occupy the Assembly and annoy the inhabitants of the border. The northern boundary brought Rhode Island into direct collision with Massachusetts, which was now the heiress of the claims of Plymouth. Commissioners were appointed who made no report, and it was only by slow steps that the Colony assumed its permanent form and dimensions. Among the laws which were brought every day to every door was the law which made the price of wheat the standard of the price of bread. Every baker was required to have his trade mark and make every loaf of a specified weight. The bread that fell short was forfeited to the poor. As an aid to commerce the Colony granted the control of the shores of all the waters comprised within a township to the town itself. This led to the building of wharves and store houses, and added to the wealth of the town. In the midst of the progressing civilization we find occasional traces of barbarism. A slave had murdered his mistress with circumstances which aggravated the crime, and despairing of escape drowned himself. A fortnight after his body came ashore at Little Compton, and "the Assembly ordered that his head, legs and arms should be hung up in some public place near Newport, and his body be burnt to ashes." We now meet the odious slave-trade, carefully watched over and protected by England as a source of wealth, but generally disliked by planters for "the turbulent and unruly tempers" of its miserable victims. Rhode Island drew most of her slaves from Barbadoes at the rate of twenty or thirty a year, and sold them at the average price of from thirty to forty pounds each. The moral question had not yet come up, but according to the old record the trade did not flourish because the people "in general" preferred white servants to black.