repairing and mending the great bridges on the main, in the country roads, and for no other use whatsoever; any thing in the aforesaid act to the contrary, in anywise notwithstanding."[465]

It is wonderful how potential the influence of money is upon mankind.  The sentiments of the good people had been scattered to the winds; and they had found a panacea for the violated convictions of the wrong of slavery in the reduction of their taxes, new bridges, and cleansed streets.  Conscience had been bribed into acquiescence, and the iniquity thrived.  There were those who still endeavored to escape the vigilance of the naval officers, and save the three pounds on each slave.  But the diligence and liberality of the authorities were not to be outdone by the skulking stinginess of Negro-smugglers.  On the 18th of June, 1723, the General Assembly passed the following order:—­

“Voted, that Mr. Daniel Updike, the attorney general, be, and he hereby is ordered, appointed and empowered to gather in the money due to this colony, for the importation of negroes, and to prosecute, sue and implead such person or persons as shall refuse to pay the same; and that he be allowed five shillings per head, for every slave that shall be hereafter imported into this colony, out of the impost money; and that he be also allowed ten per cent. more for all such money as he shall recover of the outstanding debts; and in all respects to have the like power as was given to the naval officer by the former act."[466]

The above illustrates the spirit of the times.  There was a mania for this impost-tax upon stolen Negroes, and the law was to be enforced against all who sought to evade its requirements.  But the Assembly had a delicate sense of equity, as well as an inexorable opinion of the precise demands of the law in its letter and spirit.  On the 19th of June, 1716, the following was passed:—­

“It is ordered by this Assembly, that the duty of two sucking slaves imported into this colony by Col.  James Vaughan, of Barbadoes, be remitted to the said James Vaughan."[467]

It was not below the dignity of the Legislature of the colony of Rhode Island to pass a bill of relief for Col.  Vaughan, and refund to him the six pounds he had paid to land his two sucking Negro baby slaves!  In June, 1731, the naval officer, James Cranston, called the attention of the Assembly to the case of one Mr. Royall,—­who had imported forty-five Negroes into the colony, and after a short time sold sixteen of them into the Province of Massachusetts Bay, where there was also an impost-tax,—­and asked directions.  The Assembly replied as follows:—­

“Upon consideration whereof, it is voted and ordered, that the duty to this colony of the said sixteen negroes transported into the Massachusetts Bay, as aforesaid, be taken off and remitted; but that he collect the duty of the other twenty-nine."[468]

But the zeal of the colony in seeking the enforcement of the impost-law created a strong influence against it from without; and by order of the king the entire law was repealed in May, 1732.[469]