A system uniformly persisted in for nearly a whole century, and finally carried into effect, so soon as the legislature was unrestrained by "the inhuman exercise of the royal negative," evinces the sincerity of that disposition which the legislature had shewn during so long a period, to put a check to the growing evil. From the time that the duty was raised above five per cent. it is probable that the importation of slaves into this colony decreased. The demand for them in the more southern colonies probably contributed also to lessen the numbers imported into this: for some years immediately preceding the revolution, the importation of slaves into Virginia might almost be considered as at an end; and probably would have been entirely so, if the ingenuity of the merchant had not found out the means of evading the heavy duty, by pretended sales, at which the slaves were bought in by some friend, at a quarter of their real value. Tedious and unentertaining as this detail may appear to all others, a citizen of Virginia will feel some satisfaction at reading so clear a vindication of his country, from the opprobrium, but too lavishly bestowed upon her of fostering slavery in her bosom, whilst she boasts a sacred regard to the liberty of her citizens, and of mankind in general. The acrimony of such censures must abate, at least in the breasts of the candid, upon an impartial review of the subject here brought before them; and if in addition to what we have already advanced, they consider the difficulties attendant on any plan for the abolition of slavery, in a country where so large a proportion of the inhabitants are slaves; and where a still larger proportion of the cultivators of the earth are of that description of men, they will probably feel emotions of sympathy and compassion, both for the slave and for his master, succeed to those hasty prejudices, which even the best dispositions are not exempt from contracting, upon subjects where there is a deficiency of information. We are next to consider the condition of slaves in Virginia, or the legal consequences attendant on a state of slavery in this commonwealth; and here it is not my intention to notice those laws, which consider slaves, merely as _property_, and have from time to time been enacted to regulate the disposition of them, _as such_; for these will be more properly considered elsewhere: my intention at present is therefore to take a view of such laws, only, as regard slaves, as a distinct class of _persons_, whose rights, if indeed they possess any, are reduced to a much narrower compass, than those, of which we have been speaking before.