shall be lawful for the protector of
negroes, as often as on complaint and hearing he shall be of opinion
that any negro hath been cruelly and inhumanly treated, or when it
shall be made to appear to him that an overseer hath any particular
malice, to order, at the desire of the suffering party, the said negro
to be sold to another master.

37. And be it enacted, that, in all cases of injury to member or life,
the offences against a negro shall be deemed and taken to all intents
and purposes as if the same were perpetrated against any of his
Majesty's subjects; and the protector of negroes, on complaint, or if he
shall receive credible information thereof, shall cause an indictment to
be presented for the same; and in case of suspicion of any murder of a
negro, an inquest by the coroner, or officer acting as such, shall, if
practicable, be held into the same.

[Sidenote: Of the manumission of negroes.]

38. And in order to a gradual manumission of slaves, as they shall seem
fitted to fill the offices of freemen, be it enacted, that every negro
slave, being thirty years of ago and upwards, and who has had three
children born to him in lawful matrimony, and who hath received a
certificate from the minister of his district, or any other Christian
teacher, of his regularity in the duties of religion, and of his orderly
and good behavior, may purchase, at rates to be fixed by two justices of
peace, the freedom of himself, or his wife or children, or of any of
them separately, valuing the wife and children, if purchased into
liberty by the father of the family, at half only of their marketable
values: provided that the said father shall bind himself in a penalty of
---- for the good behavior of his children.

[Sidenote: Of the same.]

39. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful for the protector of
negroes to purchase the freedom of any negro who shall appear to him to
excel in any mechanical art, or other knowledge or practice deemed
liberal, and the value shall be settled by a jury.

[Sidenote: Free negroes how to be punished.]

40. And be it enacted, that the protector of negroes shall be and is
authorized and required to act as a magistrate for the coercion of all
idle, disobedient, or disorderly free negroes, and he shall by office
prosecute them for the offences of idleness, drunkenness, quarrelling,
gaming, or vagrancy, in the supreme court, or cause them to be
prosecuted before one justice of peace, as the