"Sam": or The history of mystery./ By C. W. Webber.

60 "SAM:" OR, TIIE HISTORY OF MYSTERY.
of coffee into the West Indies, and the increasing consumption
in Europe of colonial produce, gave fresh impulse to this
detestable traffic, and it now began to be carried on to an
extent which soon roused against it the indignant humianity
of an enlightened age. The West Indies were the chief
market; but the imports to Virginia and the Carolinas were
largely increased. New England rum, manufactured at
Newport, was profitably exchanged on the coast of Africa
for negroes, to be sold in the southern colonies; and vessels
sailed on the same business from Boston and New York.
The trade, however, was principally carried on by English
merchants of Bristol and Liverpool. Except ill Pennsylvania,
the colonial duties levied on the import of slaves were intended chiefly for revenue. They were classed in the instructions to the royal governors with duties on British goods,
as impediments to British commerce not to be favored. On
this ground several of these acts received the royal veto.
Yet Virginia, as we have seen, was allowed to impose such
duties as she pleased, on the sole condition of making them
payable by the buyer. (1750.)
The importation of indented white persons, called'servants,' or sometimes'redemptioners,' in distinction from
negroes, who were known as slaves, was still extensively
carried on, especially in the middle colonies. The colonial
enactments for keeping these servants in order, and especially
for preventing them from running away, were often very
harsh and severe. They were put, for the most part, in
these statutes, on the same level with the slaves, but their
case in other respects was very different. In all the colonies,
the term of indented service, even where no express contract
had been entered into, was strictly limited by law, and, except in the case of very young persons, it seldom or never
exceeded seven years. On the expiration of that term, these
freed servants were absorbed into the mass of white inhabitants, and the way lay open before them and their children
to wealth and social distinction. One of the future signers
of the Declaration of Independence was brought to Pennsylvania as a redemptioner. In Virginia, at the expiration of
his term of service, every redemptioner, in common with
other immigrants to the colony, was entitled to a free grant
of fifty acres of land, and in all the colonies certain allowances