last past,” cannot be found.[455] But, from the one quoted above, it is to be inferred that two objects were aimed at, viz.:  First, under the codes of Massachusetts and Virginia, a drawback was allowed to an importer of a Negro who exported him within a stated time:  the Rhode-Island Act of “February” had allowed importers this privilege.  Second, notwithstanding the loud-sounding Act of 1652, this colony was not only willing to levy an impost-tax upon all slaves imported, but, in her greed for “blood money,” even denied the importer the mean privilege, in exporting his slave, of drawing his rebate!  The consistency of Rhode Island must have been a jewel that the other colonies did not covet.

The last section of the Act of 1703 was directed against “house keepers,” who were to be fined for entertaining Negro or Indian slaves after nine o’clock.  In 1708 another Act was passed, supplemental to the one of 1703, and added stripes as a penalty for non-payment of fines.  Many white persons in the larger towns had grown rather friendly towards the slaves; and, even where they did not speak out in public against the enslavement of human beings, their hearts led them to the performance of many little deeds of kindness.  They discovered many noble attributes in the Negro character, and were not backward in expressing their admiration.  When summoned before a justice, and fined for entertaining Negroes after nine o’clock, they paid the penalty with a willingness and alacrity that alarmed the slave-holding caste.  This was regarded as treason.  Some could not pay the fine, and, hence, went free.  The new Act intended to remedy this.  It was as follows:—­

     “An Act to prevent the entertainment of Negroes, &c.

“Whereas, there is a law in this colony to suppress any persons from entertaining of negro slaves or Indian servants that are not their own, in their houses, or unlawfully letting them have strong drink, whereby they were damnified, such persons were to pay a fine of five shillings, and so by that means go unpunished, there being no provision made [of] what corporeal punishment they should have, if they have not wherewith to pay: 

“Therefore, it is now enacted, that any such delinquent that shall so offend, if he or she shall not have or procure the sum of ten shillings for each defect, to be paid down before the authority before whom he or she hath been legally convicted, he or she shall be by order of said authority, publicly whipped upon their naked back, not exceeding ten stripes; any act to the contrary, notwithstanding. “[456]

It is certain that what little anti-slavery sentiment there was in the British colonies in North America during the first century of their existence received no encouragement from Parliament.  From the beginning, the plantations in this new world in the West were regarded as the hotbeds in which slavery would thrive, and bring forth abundant fruit, to the great gain