Stephens says: "It seems to result from the brief and general accounts which we have of the law of the Spanish and Portuguese settlements, though I find it nowhere expressly noticed, that slaves there are not, in all cases at least, incompetent witnesses. But even in the French Windward Islands the evidence of negro slaves was admitted against all free persons, the master only excepted; and that in criminal as well as in civil cases, where the testimony of white people could not be found to establish the facts in dispute. The _Code Noir_ merely allowed a slave's testimony to be heard by the judge, as a suggestion which might throw light on other evidence, without amounting of itself to any degree of legal proof. But the Sovereign Council of Martinique, humbly represented to his majesty that great inconveniences might result from the execution of this law, by the _impunity_ of many crimes, which _could not be proved otherwise than by the testimony of slaves_; and they prayed that such evidence might be received in all cases in which there should not be sufficient proof by free witnesses. In consequence of this, the article in question was varied so far as to admit the testimony of slaves, when white witnesses were wanting, except against their masters." PROP. 6.--_The master has absolute power to punish a slave, &c._ Stroud says, "There was a time in many, if not in all the slaveholding districts of our country, when the murder of a slave was followed by a pecuniary fine only. In one State, the change of the law in this respect has been very recent. At the present date (1827) I am happy to say the wilful, malicious, deliberate murder of a slave, by whomsoever perpetrated, is _declared_ to be punishable with death in every State. The evil is not that the laws _sanction_ crime, but that they do not _punish_ it. And this arises chiefly, if not solely, from the exclusion of the testimony, on the trial of a white person, of all those who are _not_ white."