of the Americans.  Let them further consider what must be their fate should the English prove conquerors.  If we can judge of the future from the past, it will not be much mended.  Long have the Americans, moved by compassion and actuated by sound policy, endeavored to stop the progress of slavery.  Our Assemblies have repeatedly passed acts, laying heavy duties upon imported Negroes; by which they meant altogether to prevent the horrid traffick.  But their humane intentions have been as often frustrated by the cruelty and covetousness of a set of English merchants, who prevailed upon the King to repeal our kind and merciful acts, little, indeed, to the credit of his humanity.  Can it, then, be supposed that the Negroes will be better used by the English, who have always encouraged and upheld this slavery, than by their present masters, who pity their condition; who wish, in general, to make it as easy and comfortable as possible; and who would, were it in their power, or were they permitted, not only prevent any more Negroes from losing their freedom, but restore it to such as have already unhappily lost it? No:  the ends of Lord Dunmore and his party being answered, they will either give up the offending Negroes to the rigor of the laws they have broken, or sell them in the West Indies, where every year they sell many thousands of their miserable brethren, to perish either by the inclemency of weather or the cruelty of barbarous masters.  Be not then, ye Negroes, tempted by this proclamation to ruin yourselves.  I have given you a faithful view of what you are to expect; and declare before God, in doing it, I have considered your welfare, as well as that of the country.  Whether you will profit by my advice, I cannot tell; but this I know, that, whether we suffer or not, if you desert us, you most certainly will."[539]

But the Negroes had been demoralized, and it required an extraordinary effort to quiet them.  On the 13th of December, the Virginia Convention put forth an answer to the proclamation of Lord Dunmore.  On the 14th of December a proclamation was issued “offering pardon to such slaves as shall return to their duty within ten days after the publication thereof.”  The following; was their declaration:—­

     “By the Representatives of the People of the Colony and
     Dominion of Virginia, assembled in General Convention,

     “A DECLARATION.

“Whereas Lord Dunmore, by his Proclamation dated on board the ship ‘William,’ off Norfolk, the seventh day of November, 1775, hath offered freedom to such able-bodied slaves as are willing to join him, and take up arms against the good people of this Colony, giving thereby encouragement to a general insurrection, which may induce a necessity of inflicting the severest punishments upon those unhappy people, already deluded by his base and insidious arts, and whereas, by an act of the General Assembly now in force in