"1. According to the laws and conſtant practice of this colony and all other plantations, (as well as by the civil law) ſuch perſons as are born of negro bond-women are themſelves in like condition, that is, born in ſervitude. Nor can there be any precedent in this government, or any of her Majeſty’s plantations, produced to the contrary.[1] And though the law of this colony doth not ſay that ſuch perſons as are born of negro women and ſuppofed to be mulattoes, ſhall be ſlaves, (which was needleſs, becauſe of the conſtant practice by which they are held as ſuch,) yet it ſaith expreſſly that 'no man ſhall put away or make free his negro or mulatto ſlave,' etc., which undeniably ſhows and declares an approbation of ſuch ſervitude, and that mulattoes may be held as ſlaves within this government."
The value of this teſtimony on the ſubject is enhanced by the character and poſition of the witneſs. He was Gurdon Saltonſtall, born in Maſſachuſetts, the ſon of a magiſtrate, educated at Harvard College, and afterwards Governor of Connecticut,—"at that time the popular miniſter of the New London church, and nearly as diſtinguiſhed at the bar as in the pulpit. The friend and confidential adviſer of the governor (Winthrop), who was one of his pariſhioners, his influence was already felt in the Colonial Councils, and he was largely entruſted with the management of public affairs. In general ſcholarſhip, and in the extent of his profeſſional ſtudies, both in divinity and law, he had probably no ſuperior in the colony: as an advo-
- ↑ Lay, in his tract "All Slave-Keepers Apoſtates," p. 11., enumerating the hardſhips of the inſtitution, ſays, "Nor doth this ſatisfy, but their children alſo are kept in ſlavery, ad infinitum; …"
