The first establishment in Virginia, which became permanent, was made in 1607.  I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650.  The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade, and continued it until the revolutionary war.  That suspended, ipso facto, their further importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year ’78, when I brought in a bill to prevent their further importation.  This passed without opposition, and stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.

The first settlers of this colony were Englishmen, loyal subjects to their king and church; and the grant to Sir Walter Raleigh contained an express proviso, that their laws should not be against the true Christian faith, now professed in the church of England.’  As soon as the state of the colony admitted, it was divided into parishes, in each of which was established a minister of the Anglican church, endowed with a fixed salary, in tobacco, a glebe house and land, with the other necessary appendages.  To meet these expenses, all the inhabitants of the parishes were assessed, whether they were or not members of the established church.  Towards Quakers, who came here, they were most cruelly intolerant, driving them from the colony by the severest penalties.  In process of time, however, other sectarisms were introduced, chiefly of the Presbyterian family; and the established clergy, secure for life in their glebes and salaries, adding to these, generally, the emoluments of a classical school, found employment enough in their farms and school-rooms, for the rest of the week, and devoted Sunday only to the edification of their flock, by service, and a sermon at their parish church.  Their other pastoral functions were little attended to.  Against this inactivity, the zeal and industry of sectarian preachers had an open and undisputed field; and by the time of the revolution, a majority of the inhabitants had become dissenters from the established church, but were still obliged to pay contributions to support the pastors of the minority.  This unrighteous compulsion, to maintain teachers of what they deemed religious errors, was grievously felt during the regal government, and without a hope of relief.  But the first republican legislature, which met in ’76, was crowded with petitions to abolish, this spiritual tyranny.  These brought on the severest contests in which I have ever been engaged.  Our great opponents were Mr. Pendleton and Robert Carter Nicholas; honest men, but zealous churchmen.  The petitions were referred to the committee of the whole House on the state of the country; and, after desperate contests in that committee, almost daily, from the 11th of October to the 5th of December, we prevailed so far only, as to repeal the laws, which rendered criminal