This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVII. SLAVERY. The commercial greed of England anchored the negro race upon America against the earnest protests of the colonists. In 1620, when a Dutch vessel landed twenty slaves at Jamestown, the enlightened sense of Virginia quickly took alarm, and laws against the wicked traffic were promptly passed. For more than a century Virginia fought most valiantly against the wrong which she foresaw would work irreparable injury, not only to the South, but to the whole country. In 1770 the King commanded the Governor "under pain of highest displeasure to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed." Two years later, after a prolonged and earnest debate, the Assembly of Virginia submitted to the King a memorial setting forth the inhumanity of the trade, and its exceeding great danger to the existence of his American dominions, and praying that the interests of the British dealers who would be financially benefited by the criminal traffic might not be permitted to take precedence of the welfare of the entire colonies. As England has never been known to hold any colony with the smallest reference to the benefit of its inhabitants, the petition was of course unavailing. Thus was forced upon Virginia a gigantic evil which she bravely supported for generations, and the wrongs of which she did all in her power to ameliorate. In the winter of 1735-36 Oglethorpe returned to Georgia from England, carrying two acts of Parliament, which, in the absence of testimony to the contrary, indicate that their bearer must have been the champion optimist of his generation. One of these Parliamentary decrees prohibited the sale of spirituous liquors, the other forbade the holding of slaves. The...