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1699, c. 43. An act relating to servants and slaves-a new act made 1704, c. 23, which was replaced by the revision 1715, c. 47.

11700, c. 8. An act for repealing certain laws, &c. All the acts before mentioned, passed before 1699, except that of 1692, c. 52, for encouragement of the importation of slaves, are repealed.'

1704, c. 33. An act imposing three pence per gallon on rum and wine, brandy and spirits, and twenty shillings per poll for negroes, for raising a supply to defray the public charge of this province, and twenty shillings, per poll, on Irish servants, to prevent the importing too great a number of Irish papists into this province," enacted for three years, but afterwards revived and continued by various acts, the last being that of 1783, c. 20, enacted for twenty-one years.

c. 93. An act for the advancement of the natives and residents of this province; enacts that no persons shall hold office, with the exception of those commissioned by the crown; until after three years' residence.

1705, c. 6. An act for punishment of persons selling or transporting any friend Indian or Indians, out of this Province -continued in the revision of 1715.

1715, c. 15, sec. 5. "And for the better ascertaining what persons are and shall be deemed taxables and what not, be it enacted, that all male persons, residents in this province, and all

1 In "Plantation laws," Maryland, p. 68, an act is given of this date: it contains provisions respecting servants, similar to those in Virginia and other colonies. Sec. 19, provides," All negroes and other slaves imported into this province, and their children, shall be slaves during their natural lives." Sec. 20. "Any white woman, free or servant, that suffers herself to be begot with child, by a negro, or other slave, or free negro; such woman, if free, shall become a servant for seven years; if a servant, shall serve seven years longer than her first term of service. If the negro that begot the child be free, he shall serve seven years to be adjudged by the justices of the county court, and the issue of such copulations shall be servants till they arrive at the age of thirty-one years. And any white man that shall get a negro woman with child (whether free or servant) shall undergo the same penalties as white women."

2 Mr. Stroud, in Sketch, &c., 2d ed., p. 16, observes that the rule attributing slavery to the issue of slave fathers being repealed by this act, there was no written law to determine the condition of the issue of slaves until 1715, c. 44. Whether the law of 1704, c. 23, contained any rule does not appear in Bacon's laws.

That is, for the poll tax, abolished by the State bill of rights. 1 Dorsey's laws, p. 8. Compare the note on the Virginia law of 1649, c. 2, relating to tithables.

female slaves therein of the age of sixteen years or above, shall be accounted taxables"-with some exceptions.

1715, c. 19. An act prohibiting all masters of ships or vessels, or any other person, from transporting or conveying away any person or persons out of this Province without passes. By sec. 3, every person who shall convey away "any servant or servants, being servants here by condition for wages, indenture, or custom of the country, shall be liable, &c. Sec. 5. Persons who shall entice, transport, &c., any apprentice or other servants or slaves belonging to any inhabitant, &c. (1 Dorsey's laws, p. 9; note, see 1753, c. 9; 1748, c. 19; 1793, c. 45; 1780, c. 24; 1824, c. 85; 1818, c. 157.)

23.

c. 44. An act relating to servants and slaves, contains 135 sections, similar in effect to contemporary Virginia laws. Sec. 6, relates to runaways, and the apprehension of any person or persons whatsoever travelling out of the county wherein they reside with a pass, or persons "not sufficiently known or able to give a good account of themselves." Provides that all negroes and other slaves, already imported or hereafter to be imported into this province, and all children now born or hereafter to be born of such negroes and slaves, shall be slaves during their natural lives. 24. Declaratory that baptism of slaves does not thereby manumit or set free such slaves. 26. White women got, with child by slaves or free negroes shall become servants for seven years. 27. The free negro father to serve a like period, and the children until thirty-one years of age. 28. Any white man that shall beget any negro woman with child, whether free woman or servant, shall undergo the same penalties as white women. See the abstract in 2 Hildr. 323, and the provisions as to runaways, &c., in Stroud's Sketch, 2d ed., 131.

1717, c. 13. An act supplementary to the above. Sec. 2, enacts that "no negro or mulatto slave, free negro, or mulatto born of a white woman, during his time of servitude by law, or any Indian slave or free Indian, natives of this or the neighboring provinces, be admitted or received as good and valid evidence in law, in any matter or thing whatsoever, depending

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before any court of record, or before any magistrate within this province wherein any Christian white person is concerned. 3. Admits their evidence against one another, provided not extending to depriving of life or member. 4. Provides for paying the owner when the slave has been capitally convicted. 5. Negroes or mulattoes of either sex, intermarrying with whites, are to be slaves for life; except mulattoes born of white women, who shall serve for seven years; and the white party for the same time. Supplementary are acts-1719, c. 2; 1728, c. 4; 1748, c. 19; 1765, c. 28.

1723, c. 15. An act to prevent the tumultuous meeting and other irregularities of negroes and other slaves. Sec. 4. That negro or other slaves striking white persons-their ears may be cropt on order of a Justice." 6. Forbids slaves possessing cattle. 7. Negroes outlying and resisting may be "shot, killed or destroyed." Supplementary act, 1751, c. 14. Value of slave killed to be paid to the owner. Supplementary are 1737, c. 7; 1753, c. 26.

1728, c. 4. Supplementary to 1715, c. 44. Free mulatto women, having bastard children by negroes and other slaves, and free negro women, having bastard children by white men, and their issue, are subjected to the same penalties which, in the former act, sec. 26, are provided against white women.

1729, c. 4. Reciting that many petit treasons and cruel murders have been committed by negroes, and "that the manner.of executing offenders prescribed by the laws of England is not sufficient to deter a people from committing the greatest cruelties who only consider the rigour and severity of punishment," provides that any negro or other slave, on conviction of certain crimes, shall be hanged, and the body quartered and exposed.

1731, c. 7. Supplementary to above act and to 1723, c. 15. Continued 1740, c. 7; 1744, c. 18; 1747, c. 16-incorporated in new law, 1751, c. 14.

1750, c. 5. To remedy some evils relating to servants, temporary, but continued by 1766, c. 5; 1773, c. 12; 1781, c. 29.

1751, c. 14. A revisal of the acts relating to punishment of crimes committed by slaves. Sec. 2, 4, providing for punish

ment of death without benefit of clergy. A trial by jury and justices of assize, as in case of other persons, appears to be contemplated. For three years. Supplementary, is 1753, c. 26 ; continued by 1754, c. 19; 1765, c. 17.

1752, c. 1. An act to prevent disabled and superannuated slaves being set free, or the manumission of slaves by any last will or testament. Temporary-continued 1766, c. 1 (for 20 years).

1763, c. 28.1 An act imposing additional duties on slaves, continued 1766, c. 13; 1773, c. 14 (7 years).

1776, July 3. The provincial convention at Annapolis, resolving on the election of a new convention, to "be elected for the express purpose of forming a new government by the authority of the people only." "All free men above twenty-one years, being freeholders of not less," &c., or having property of value designated, were to be admitted to vote. Maryl. laws for Annapolis, 1787.

§ 220. LEGISLATION OF MASSACHUSETTS.

The colonists who landed at Plymouth, in 1620, exercised, until the year 1692, a separate legislative power over a portion of the present State of Massachusetts. Their enactments have been published separately from those of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, under the name of the Plymouth Colony Laws, edited by W. Brigham, Boston, 1836. In these, pp. 36, 50, the origin of their legislative power is ascribed to their compact, signed 11 Nov. 1620. These laws do not contain any declaration in the nature of a bill of rights beyond that first printed in 1661, and first declared in 1636, under the name of the General Fundamentals. Plym. Col. Laws, advertis. p. viii. and Part III.;

This is the last year of Bacon's laws.

This was, for the greater part, a declaration of political power. It will be remembered that the Plymouth colonists had no charter from the king. The patent for Virginia, of 1606, applied to the entire region of America claimed by the English. See its guarantees, ante, p. 228, note. "The great patent of New England," of 1620, established a council in "Plymouth, in the county of Devon," in England, and empowered them to "ordain and establish all manner of orders, laws, directions, instructions, forms and ceremonies of government and magistracy, fit and necessary for and concerning the government of the said colony and plantation [New England], so always

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the first and fourth articles of which have this character and have already been cited. They contain some provisions respecting indentured servants, pp. 34, 35, 47, 58, 61, 65, 81, 140, 195. From these, however, it would appear that the condition of such servants, if of English origin, was in this colony less burdensome than that of persons of the same class in other settlements, and that the policy of the colony was to encourage their emancipation and facilitate their settlement on land of their own.

2

It would seem that such persons even participated in the exercise of the elective franchise during the first sixteen years of the settlement. But it appears that in 1636, not even all male freeholders were entitled to vote, and the laws distinguish "freemen" or "associates" as a distinct portion of the inhabitants, constituting a corporation, Ply. Col. L. pp. 42, 62, 100, 108, 113.3 In 1657, it was enacted "that all such as reside within this government "that are att theire owne despose,"

as the same be not contrary to the laws and statutes of this our realm of Engand," &c. The "principal governors were empowered to govern by the laws so established, “so always as the statutes, ordinances, and proceedings, as near as conveniently may, be agreeable to the laws, statutes, government, and police of this our realm of England." It was also provided "that the persons, being our subjects, which shall go and inhabit," &c., should have the privileges of subjects born in England (in words almost literally the same as those used in the second charter of Virginia, ante, p. 229). See Patent in 1 Hazard, 103, and summaries; 1 Ban. 272; 1 Hild. 152. The council for New England, under this, granted a patent to Governor Bradford and "his associates," the Plymouth colonists, 1630, with powers of government according to the terms of the Great Patent, 1 Haz. 298; Plym. Col. Laws, 21. A patent issued for their benefit to John Pierce, in 1621. See Young's Chronicles, p. 114, n.; Plym. Col. Laws, p. 50, This patent seems not to have been used. As to powers derived from patents, see ante, § 127.

1 Ante, § 129.

2 Some of the signers of the original compact are designated as persons "in the family" of some one of the others. See Prince, Part II. p. 86, 105. 1 Banc. 322. "For more than eighteen years the whole body of the male inhabitants' constituted the legislature." If the same anomaly existed in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, the exception herein before taken (p. 121, n. 4,) to Mr. Bancroft's statement is ill-founded. At the period when slavery or bondage existed under the Saxon law, and the term freemen designated a class having, by the elective franchise, a share of political power, still, all who were not bondsmen were not freemen, in that sense. N. Bacon's Hist. Disc. p. 56, describing the Free-lazzi, “yet attained they not to the full pitch of freemen; for the lord might acquit his own title of bondage, but no man could be made free without the act of the whole body." Comp. ante, p. 125, n. 2, p. 136, n. 3.

3 Thus assuming to have that legal foundation for their civil polity, which the "freemen of the company" of the colony of Massachusetts Bay claimed for themselves under their charter from the king.