The Cavalier and adventurer in working out their destiny in the New World became purged of the foibles that continued to debauch their compeers in England; among their descendants of a few generations were those men of unimpeachable honor and integrity of purpose who will be held forever as the highest types of American chivalry and manhood. Those of Virginia, with whom colonial slavery was most ancient, were the first to be aroused to the full ethical significance of the evil--to the grave injustice to the unfortunate lower race, and to the detriment to the moral nature of the higher. They were the first to attempt to legislate against the evil. In 1770, Virginia protested against the importation of slaves, but to no avail as royalty itself was financially interested in the traffic. At the meeting of the delegates from each county of Virginia held at Williamsburg in August, 1774, to consider British oppression and indignities, the second article of the protest resolved and agreed upon bore upon the slave traffic: “We will neither ourselves import nor purchase any slave, or slaves, imported by any person, after the first day of November next, either from Africa, the West Indies, or any other place.” This meeting was a full one, and among the one hundred and eight signers--all prominent in Virginia life and annals--are Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Marshall, Thomas Randolph, and Francis Lightfoot Lee. The instructions of Thomas Jefferson, with whom the abolition of slavery was always a great aim, to the Virginia delegates to the first Congress (August, 1774), voiced the sentiments of Virginia’s most thoughtful men: “For the most trifling reason, and sometimes for no reason at all, His Majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was, unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this, by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition have been hitherto defeated by His Majesty’s negative; thus preferring the immediate advantage of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by this inhuman practise.”