was passed without a dissenting voice.  Before this time they had been denominated by the courts as chattels:  now they were to pass in law as real estate.  There were, however, several provisos to this act.  Merchants coming into the colony with slaves, not sold, were not to be affected by the act until the slaves had actually passed in a bona-fide sale.  Until such time their slaves were contemplated by the law as chattels.  In case a master died without lawful heirs, his slaves did not escheat, but were regarded as other personal estate or property.  Slave property was liable to be taken in execution for the payment of debts, and was recoverable by a personal action.[159]

The only apology for enslaving the Negroes we can find in all the records of this colony is, that they “were heathen.”  Every statute, from the first to the last, during the period the colony was under the control of England, carefully mentions that all persons—­Indians and Negroes—­who “are not Christians” are to be slaves.  And their conversion to Christianity afterwards did not release them from their servitude.[160]

The act making Indian, Mulatto, and Negro slaves real property, passed in October, 1705, under the reign of Queen Anne, and by her approved, was “explained” and “amended” in February, 1727, during the reign of King George II.  Whether the act received its being out of a desire to prevent fraud, like the “Statutes of Frauds,” is beyond finding out.  But it was an act that showed that slavery had grown to be so common an institution as not to excite human sympathy.  And the attempt to “explain” and “amend” its cruel provisions was but a faint precursor of the evils that followed.  Innumerable lawsuits grew out of the act, and the courts and barristers held to conflicting interpretations and constructions.  Whether complaints were made to his Majesty, the king, the records do not relate; or whether he was moved by feelings of humanity is quite as difficult to understand.  But on the 31st of October, 1751, he issued a proclamation repealing the act declaring slaves real estate.[161] The proclamation abrogated nine other acts, and quite threw the colony into confusion.[162] It is to be hoped that the king was animated by the noblest impulses in repealing one of the most dehumanizing laws that ever disgraced the government of any civilized people.  The General Assembly, on the 15th of April, 1752, made an appeal to the king, “humbly” protesting against the proclamation.  The law-makers in the colony were inclined to doubt the king’s prerogative in this matter.  They called the attention of his Majesty to the fact that he had given the “Governor” “full power and authority with the advice and consent of the council” to make needful laws; but they failed to realize fully that his Majesty, in accordance with the proviso contained in the grant of authority made to the governor and council of the colony, was using his veto.  They recited the