orty-four counties lying upon the Bay, and the great rivers of the
state, and comprehended by a line including Brunswick, Cumberland,
Goochland, Hanover, Spottsylvania, Stafford, Prince William and Fairfax,
and the counties eastward thereof, the number of slaves is 196,542, and
the number of free persons, including free Negroes and mulattoes,
198,371 only. So that the blacks in that populous and extensive district
of country are _more numerous_ than the whites. In the second class,
comprehending nineteen counties, and extending from the last mentioned
line to the Blue Ridge, and including the populous counties of Frederick
and Berkeley, beyond the Blue Ridge, there are 82,286 slaves, and
136,251 free persons; the number of free persons in that class not being
two to one, to the slaves. In the third class the proportion is
considerably increased; the eleven counties of which it consists contain
only 11,218 slaves, and 76,281 free persons. This class reaches to the
Allegany ridge of mountains: the fourth and last class, comprehending
fourteen counties westward of the third class, contains only 2,381
slaves, and 42,288 free persons. It is obvious from this statement that
almost all the dangers and inconveniences which may be apprehended from
a state of slavery on the one hand, or an attempt to abolish it, on the
other, will be confined to the people eastward of the blue ridge of
mountains.]

Whatever inclination the first inhabitants of Virginia might have to
encourage slavery, a disposition to check its progress, and increase,
manifested itself in the legislature even before the close of the last
century. So long ago as the year 1669 we find the title of an act [Edit.
of 1733. c. 12.], laying an imposition upon _servants_, and _slaves_,
imported into this country; which was either continued, revised, or
increased, by a variety of temporary acts, passed between that period
and the revolution in 1776.[14]--One of these acts passed in 1723, by a
marginal note appears to have been repealed by proclamation, Oct. 24,
1724. In 1732 a duty of five per cent. was laid on slaves imported, to
be paid by the buyers; a measure calculated to render it as little
obnoxious as possible to the _English_ merchants trading to Africa, and
not improbably suggested by them, to the privy council in England. The
preamble to this act is in these remarkable words, "We your majesty's
most dutiful and loyal subjects, &c. taking into our serious
consid