49. ~The Act of 1803.~ The Haytian revolt, having been among the main causes of two laws, soon was the direct instigation to a third. The frightened feeling in the South, when freedmen from the West Indies began to arrive in various ports, may well be imagined. On January 17, 1803, the town of Wilmington, North Carolina, hastily memorialized Congress, stating the arrival of certain freed Negroes from Guadeloupe, and apprehending "much danger to the peace and safety of the people of the Southern States of the Union" from the "admission of persons of that description into the United States."[44] The House committee which considered this petition hastened to agree "That the system of policy stated in the said memorial to exist, and to be now pursued in the French colonial government, of the West Indies, is fraught with danger to the peace and safety of the United States. That the fact stated to have occurred in the prosecution of that system of policy, demands the prompt interference of the Government of the United States, as well Legislative as Executive."[45] The result was a bill providing for the forfeiture of any ship which should bring into States prohibiting the same "any negro, mulatto, or other person of color;" the captain of the ship was also to be punished. After some opposition[46] the bill became a law, February 28, 1803.[47] 50. ~State of the Slave-Trade from 1789 to 1803.~ Meantime, in spite of the prohibitory State laws, the African slave-trade to the United States continued to flourish. It was notorious that New England traders carried on a large traffic.[48] Members stated on the floor of the House that "it was much to be regretted that the severe and pointed statute against the slave trade had been so little regarded. In defiance of its forbiddance and its penalties, it was well known that citizens and vessels of the United States were still engaged in that traffic.... In various parts of the nation, outfits were made for slave-voyages, without secrecy, shame, or apprehension.... Countenanced by their fellow-citizens at home, who were as ready to buy as they themselves were to collect and to bring to market, they approached our Southern harbors and inlets, and clandestinely disembarked the sooty offspring of the Eastern, upon the ill fated soil of the Western hemisphere. In this way, it had been computed that, during the last twelve months, twenty thousand enslaved negroes had been transported from Guinea, and, by smuggling, added to the plantation stock of Georgia and South Carolina. So little respect seems to have been paid to the existing prohibitory statute, that it may almost be considered as disregarded by common consent."[49]