With the great increase of this element in the population, the colonists
were quick to realize their danger[6] and numerous acts were passed by
the Colonial Legislature designed to lessen, if not actually to stop,
further importations. Alluding to these efforts of the Virginia people,
Mr. Bancroft says:
"Again and again they had passed laws restraining the importation of
negroes from Africa, but their laws were disallowed. How to prevent
them from protecting themselves against the increase of the
overwhelming evil was debated by the King in Council; and on the 10th
of December, 1770, he issued an instruction under his own hand
commanding the Governor 'upon pain of the highest displeasure, to
assent to no laws by which the importation of slaves should be in any
respect prohibited or obstructed.'"[7]
Edmund Burke, in his speech on conciliating America, in response to the
suggestion that the slaves might be freed and used against the colonies,
said,
"Dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the
offer of freedom from the very nation which had sold them to their
present masters—from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with
those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman
traffic. An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly,
shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into
the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred
Angola Negroes."[8]
In addition to legislative enactments, appeals were addressed directly
to the throne. But the great personages interested in the slave trade
proved more influential with the King than the prayers of his imperilled
people. There is something at once pathetic and prophetic in the appeals
made by these Virginians to their sovereign against the slave trade. The
petition presented by the House of Burgesses in 1772 recites:
"We implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity
of a most alarming nature. The importation of slaves into the colonies
from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great
inhumanity, and under its present encouragement we have too much
reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's
American dominions. We are sensible that some of your Majesty's
subjects may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic, but when we
consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with
more useful inhabitants and may in time have the most destructive
influence, we presume to hope that the interests of a few will be
disregarded when placed in competition with the security and happiness
of such numbers of your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects. We,
therefore, beseech your Majesty to remove all these restraints on your
Majesty's Governor in this colony which inhibits their assenting to
such laws as might check so pernicious a consequence."[9]
This petition was reported from a Committee of the House which included
Edmund Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison and others of
equal prominence.[10]
But the King and Ministers continued to turn deaf ears and except with
respect to more moderate measures the Royal Veto was interposed to annul
all anti-slavery laws.