[240] _Stat. at L._, X, 67-73; 2 Sergeant and Rawle, 305-309. Many of the Friends thought that negroes ought not to be held after they were twenty-one. _Cf._ MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 23. Very many masters lost their negroes through failing to register them, through ignorance of the provision requiring registry, or through carelessness in complying with it. _Cf._ Rush, _Considerations upon the Present Test-Law_, (2nd ed.), 7 (note); _Journals of House, 1776-1781_, p. 537, and following; 4 _Pa. Arch._, III, 822. _Cf._ Christopher Marshall's Remembrancer, F, Oct. 10, 1780: ... "gott our Negro Recorded." _Cf. York Herald_, Apr. 26, 1797. The limit was extended to Jan. 1, 1783, in favor of the citizens of Washington and Westmoreland counties, previously under the jurisdiction of Virginia. _Stat. at L._, X, 463. Runaways from other states were of course not made free by this provision. _Cf._ sect. VIII of act. [241] The repeal of this section was proposed the next year, but failed by three votes. _Cf. Journals of House, 1776-1781_, p. 605. It was finally repealed in 1847. [242] Sect. X of act. [243] For the view that it was drafted by William Lewis, _cf. Pa. Mag._, XIV, 14; Robert E. Randall, _Speech on the Laws of the State relative to Fugitive Slaves_, 6; Horace Binney, _Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia_, 25. There can be little doubt, however, that full credit should be given to Bryan. "He framed and executed the 'act'" ... Obituary notice in the _Gazette_, Feb. 2, 1791. _Cf._ inscription on his tomb-stone, copy in Inscriptions in the Burying Ground of the Second Presbyterian Church Phila. (MS. H. S. P.); _Mem. Hist. Soc. Pa._, I, 408-410; Konkle, _Life and Times of Thomas Smith_, 105. [244] Vermont had forbidden slavery by her constitution of 1777. Poore, II, 1859. [245] Its significance in this respect is remarked by Bowden, _History of the Friends_, II, 220. Connecticut and Rhode Island provided for abolition in 1784, New York in 1799, New Jersey in 1804. The same was accomplished in Massachusetts in 1780, and in New Hampshire in 1792, by construction of the constitution. Among many instances where Pennsylvania pointed to her great act with pride, _cf. Acts of Assembly, 1819-20_, p. 199; 4 _Pa. Arch._, VI, 242, 290. Albert Gallatin, writing to Charles Brown, Mar. 1, 1838, says: "It is indeed a great subject of pride ... that as one of the United States she was the first to abolish slavery" ... _Writings_ (ed. Adams), II, 523, 524. [246] 1 Dallas 469; 14 Sergeant and Rawle 443-446; 1 _Pa. Arch._, VIII, 720. [247] _Pa. Mag._, XV, 372, 373. The selling-price elsewhere was greater since it included the price of the posterity.