The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume VI Part 17

[Sidenote: Concerning the same.]

23. And be it enacted, that, if any negro shall refuse a competent marriage tendered to him, and shall not demand another specifically, such as it may be in his master's power to provide, the master or overseer shall be authorized to constrain him by an increase of work or a lessening of allowance.

[Sidenote: Adultery, &c., how to be punished.]

24. And be it enacted, that the minister in each district shall have, with the a.s.sent of the inspector, full power and authority to punish all acts of adultery, unlawful concubinage, and fornication, amongst negroes, on hearing and a summary process, by ordering a number of blows, not exceeding ----, for each offence; and if any white person shall be proved, on information in the supreme court, to be exhibited by the protector of negroes, to have committed adultery with any negro woman, or to have corrupted any negro woman under sixteen years of age he shall be fined in the sum of ----, and shall be forever disabled from serving the office of overseer of negroes, or being attorney to any plantation.

[Sidenote: Concerning marriage.]

25. And be it enacted, that no slaves shall be compelled to do any work for their masters for [three] days after their marriage.

[Sidenote: Concerning pregnant women.]

26. And be it enacted, that no woman shall be obliged to field-work, or any other laborious work, for one month before her delivery, or for six weeks afterwards.

[Sidenote: Separation of husband and wife, and children, to be avoided.]

27. And be it enacted, that no husband and wife shall be sold separately, if originally belonging to the same master; nor shall any children under sixteen be sold separately from their parents, or one parent, if one be living.

[Sidenote: Concerning the same.]

28. And be it enacted, that, if an husband and wife, which before their intermarriage belonged to different owners, shall be sold, they shall not be sold at such a distance as to prevent mutual help and cohabitation; and of this distance the minister shall judge, and his certificate of the inconvenient distance shall be valid, so as to make such sale unlawful, and to render the same null and void.

[Sidenote: Negroes not to work on Sat.u.r.day afternoon or Sunday.]

29. And be it enacted, that no negro shall be compelled to work for his owner at field-work, or any service relative to a plantation, or to work at any handicraft trade, from eleven o'clock on Sat.u.r.day forenoon until the usual working hour on Monday morning.

[Sidenote: Other cases of exemption from labor.]

30. And whereas habits of industry and sobriety, and the means of acquiring and preserving property, are proper and reasonable preparatives to freedom, and will secure against an abuse of the same: Be it enacted, that every negro man, who shall have served ten years, and is thirty years of age, and is married, and has had two children born of any marriage, shall obtain the whole of Sat.u.r.day for himself and his wife, and for his own benefit, and after thirty-seven years of age, the whole of Friday for himself and his wife: provided that in both cases the minister of the district and the inspector of negroes shall certify that they know nothing against his peaceable, orderly, and industrious behavior.

[Sidenote: Huts and land to be appropriated.]

31. And be it enacted, that the master of every plantation shall provide the materials of a good and substantial hut for each married field negro; and if his plantation shall exceed ---- acres, he shall allot to the same a portion of land not less than ----: and the said hut and land shall remain and stand annexed to the said negro, for his natural life, or during his bondage; but the same shall not be alienated without the consent of the owners.

[Sidenote: Property of negroes secured.]

32. And be it enacted, that it shall not be lawful for the owner of any negro, by himself or any other, to take from him any land, house, cattle, goods, or money, acquired by the said negro, whether by purchase, donation, or testament, whether the same has been derived from the owner of the said negro, or any other.

33. And be it enacted, that, if the said negro shall die possessed of any lands, goods, or chattels, and dies without leaving a wife or issue, it shall be lawful for the said negro to devise or bequeath the same by his last will; but in case the said negro shall die intestate, and leave a wife and children, the same shall be distributed amongst them, according to the usage under the statute, commonly called the Statute of Distributions; but if the said negro shall die intestate without wife or children, then, and in that case, his estate shall go to the fund provided for the better execution of this act.

34. And be it enacted, that no negro, who is married, and hath resided upon any plantation for twelve months, shall be sold, either privately or by the decree of any court, but along with the plantation on which he hath resided, unless he should himself request to be separated therefrom.

[Sidenote: Of the punishment of negroes.]

35. And be it enacted, that no blows or stripes exceeding thirteen, shall be inflicted for one offence upon any negro, without the order of one of his Majesty's justices of peace.

[Sidenote: Of the same.]

36. And it is enacted, that it 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 case may require.

[Sidenote: Of the same.]

41. And be it enacted, that, if any free negro hath been twice convicted for any of the said misdemeanors, and is judged by the said protector of negroes, calling to his a.s.sistance two justices of the peace, to be incorrigibly idle, dissolute, and vicious, it shall be lawful, by the order of the said protector and two justices of peace, to sell the said free negro into slavery: the purchase-money to be paid to the person so remanded into servitude, or kept in hand by the protector and governor for the benefit of his family.

[Sidenote: Governor to receive and transmit annual reports.]

42. And be it enacted, that the governor in each colony shall be a.s.sistant to the execution of this act, and shall receive the reports of the protector, and such other accounts as he shall judge material, relative thereto, and shall transmit the same annually to one of his Majesty's princ.i.p.al secretaries of state.

LETTER

TO

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MEETING,

HELD AT AYLESBURY, APRIL 13, 1780,

ON THE SUBJECT OF

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

NOTE.

The meeting of the freeholders of the County of Buckingham, which occasioned the following Letter, was called for the purpose of taking into consideration a pet.i.tion to Parliament for shortening the duration of Parliaments, and for a more equal representation of the people in the House of Commons.

Sir,--Having heard yesterday, by mere accident, that there is an intention of laying before the county meeting _new matter, which is not contained in our pet.i.tion_, and the consideration of which had been deferred to a fitter time by a majority of our committee in London, permit me to take this method of submitting to you my reasons for thinking, with our committee, that nothing ought to be hastily deter mined upon the subject.