e now at sea a
skipper (for our friend Esaias Holderoft of London did advise me
by the last packet that it would sail sometime in August) called
ye _Welcome_ (R. Green was master), which has aboard a hundred or
more of ye heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn,
who is ye scamp at ye head of them.

"Ye General court has accordingly given secret orders to master
Malachi Huxtell of ye brig _Porpoise_ to waylaye ye said _Welcome_
as near ye coast of Codd as may be, and make captives of ye Penn
and his ungodly crew, so that ye Lord may be glorified, and not
mocked on ye soil of this new country with ye heathen worshippe of
these people. Much spoil can be made by selling ye whole lot to
Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rumme and sugar. We
shall not only do ye Lord great service by punishing the Wicked,
but shall make gayne for his ministers and people. Yours in the
bowels of Christ,

"Cotton Mather."

( 9) Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia by law of
Congress, passed April 16, 1862.

President Lincoln's proclamation of January 1, 1863, emancipated
all slaves in the seceded States (save in Tennessee and in parts
of Louisiana and Virginia excepted therefrom) to the number of
3,063,395; those remaining were freed by the thirteenth amendment
to the Constitution, December 18, 1865.

III
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

The Declaration of Independence, though accepted at once and to be
regarded through all time by the liberty-loving world as the best
and boldest declaration in favor of human rights, and the most
pronounced protest against oppression of the human race, is totally
silent as to the rights of the slaves in the colonies. It is true
that Jefferson in his draft of this instrument, in the articles of
indictment against King George III., used this language:

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its
most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant
people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into
slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in the
transportation thither, . . . determined to keep open a market
where white men should be bought and sold; he has prostituted his
negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or
restrain this execrable commerce."

To conciliate Georgia and South Carolina, this part of the indictment
was struck out. These colonies had never sought to re