weapon; to utter any seditious speech; to be present at any unlawful assembly of slaves; to lift the hand in opposition to a white person, unless wantonly assaulted, are all offences punishable by whipping [1794. c. 103.]. To attempt the chastity of a white woman, forcibly, is punishable by dismemberment: such an attempt would be a high misdemeanor in a white free man, but the punishment would be far short of that of a slave [Ibidem.]. To administer medicine without the order or consent of the master, unless it _appear not to have been done with an ill intent_; to _consult_, advise, or conspire, to rebel or make insurrection; or to _conspire_, or _plot_ to _murder_ any person, we have seen, are all capital offences, from which the benefit of clergy is utterly excluded. But a _bare intention_ to commit a felony, is not punishable in the case of a free white man; and even the attempt, if not attended with an actual breach of the peace, or prevented by such circumstance; only, as do not tend to lessen the guilt of the offender, is at most a misdemeanor by the common law: and in statutable offences in general, to consult, advise, and even to procure any person to commit a felony, does not constitute the crime of felony in the adviser or procurer, unless the felony be actually perpetrated. From this view of our jurisprudence respecting slaves, we are unavoidably led to remark, how frequently the laws of nature have been set aside in favour of institutions, the pure result of prejudice, usurpation, and tyranny. We have found actions, innocent, or indifferent, punishable with a rigour scarcely due to any, but the most atrocious, offences against civil society; justice distributed by an unequal measure to the master and the slave; and even the hand of mercy arrested, where mercy might have been extended to the wretched culprit, had his complexion been the same with that of his judges: for, the short period of ten days, between his condemnation and execution, was often insufficient to obtain a pardon for a slave, convicted in a remote part of the country, whilst a free man, condemned at the seat of government, and tried before the governor himself, in whom the power of pardoning was vested, had a respite of thirty days to implore the clemency of the executive authority.--It may be urged, and I believe with truth, that these rigours do not proceed from a sanguinary temper in the people of Virginia, but from those political considerations indispensibly necessary, where slavery prevails to any great extent: I am moreover happy to observe that our police respecting this unhappy class of people, is not only less rigorous than formerly, but perhaps milder than in any other country[17] where there are so many slaves, or so large a proportion of them, in respect to the free inhabitants: it is also, I trust, unjust to censure the present generation for the existence of slavery in Virginia: for I think it unquestionably true, that a very