pence, one other year will purchase him another day of li berty; and the heaviest half of his talk is then accomplished.

He is now half free, beginning to feel a proportionate confequence, and may probably increase his own enjoyments a little more. Admitting this, in two years, or two years and a half, more, he may compleat the full purchase of his freedom; but if, instead of fix years, it should even take them feven, eight, or nine, years, it would be far better for them than if they had their full liberty and freedom at once; and, being the work of their own hands, by favour of their master, it inculcates two good principles: industry, with a true knowledge of its value, from which it is likely to become habitual; and gratitude to their mafter, whofe work they will then be happy to do as free fervants. Nor have I much doubt but that the pleafing hope of fuch liberation, while they are gaining it by degrees, will afford them nearly, if not quite, as much comfort as the final attainment of it. At any rate, the gradual acquirement of it will be the best means to prevent their being madly intoxicated at the completion. They will know the value better, and will have gained fach habits of induftry and frugality as to infure their future welfare. The owner receives the full value, with an ample intereft, from the work done for him, and will alfo enjoy the high mental gratification of liberating a fellow-creature from flavery.

In the account of my farm in the ftate of New-York, I have mentioned the mode I adopted there for liberating those I purchased, which was as fimilar to the foregoing as the difference of climate and country would permit ; and the gentlemen, with whom I left them upon the farm, engaged to fulfil and purfue the fame plan.

I allow that the bulk of the flaves employed in the WeftIndia plantations have the appearance of being but a few degrees above the brute creation; but it is their fituation

which

which makes them fo. Teach them better by good usage, and stimulate them to induftry by fweetening their bitter cup with a cheering prospect of obtaining their liberty; and they will foon exhibit sufficient proof of their capacity to deserve and enjoy it. At our family-devotions on Sundays, my negroes, whom I called-in to attend likewife, could fcarcely conceive what was proposed; yet in a short time, from receiving the best inftructions in my power, and perceiving, in my address to the one Almighty God, that they were considered as equal in his eye, according to their deferts, they attended, with earneftnefs and gratitude, to be better informed of their dependence on his Providence for the comforts of this life, with the hope of a better hereafter. These were circumftances, concerning which their former owners had never given them the smallest instruction.

:

I must acknowledge there was one thing refpecting the negroes in fome parts of America, which aftonished met much; nor was I ever able to account for it to my own fatisfaction but truth requires it to be mentioned. On the subject of flavery, every feeling heart will naturally fympathize for the parent whofe mind, we fuppofe, must be tortured with agony when he confiders his children born to perpetual flavery; yet how shall we account for the very common practife, among the free negroes in America, of preferring to marry flave-wenches, by which they make all their children flaves? The fact is fo; and the only reason

I could learn, or can affign, for it, is "that they value not their liberty at the price of their maintenance." But poffibly this may arife from the long degradation of their minds, which a more liberal treatment and enlightening education might correct and bring-back to a natural fenfe of parental duties.

END OF MR. HARRIOTT'S CHAPTER ON NEGRO-SLAVERY.

THE PRE-EMINENCE AND DUTY

OF

PARLEMENT.

Written in the year 1646, by James Howell, Esq.

The following difcourfe on the English Parliament is the firft fection of a political tract written about the year 1646, by James Howell, Esquire, an eminent writer of that time, who was attached to the party of King Charles the First, in the time of that Great Civil War, and was imprisoned in the Fleet-prifon during feveral years by order of the Parliament, on account of such attachment to the Royal cause: but after the restoration of King Charles the Second, he was made Hiftoriographer royal to that King; and in the yearr 61, he published at London a fmall volume in duodecimo, containing twelve small tracts, relating to the causes of the late civil wars and revolutions in England, Scotland, and Ireland, which he had written many years before at different times, in the courfe of the faid Civil War. In this volume, page 343, &c. I met with this defcription of the nature and powers of the English Parliament, which, I thought, exhibited so just and lively a picture of the advantages belonging to the Limited Monarchy of England, under a king and two houses of Parliament, that I resolved to prefent it to my readers in this mifcellaneous collection of fmall tracts relating chiefly to political subjects.

F. M.

I AM a free-born subject of the realm of England; whereby 1 claim, as my native inheritance, an undoubted right, propriety, and portion in the Laws of the Land: and this diftinguisheth me from a flave. I claim likewife

this

protection from my foverain Prince; who, as he is my liege Lord, is obliged to proteɛ me; and I, being one of his liege people, am obliged to obey him, by way of reciprocation. I claim alfo an intereft and common right in the High National Court of Parlement, and in the power, the priviledges, and jurifdiction thereof, which I put in equal ballance with the Laws, in regard it is the fountain whence they Spring; and this I hold alfo to be a principal part of my Birth right which Great Council I honour, respect, value and love in as high a degree as can be, as being the bul wark of our liberties, the main boundary and bank which keeps us from flavery, from the inundation of tyrannical rule, and unbounded will-government. And I hold myself obliged in a tye of indifpenfable obedience, to conform and submit myself to whatsoever shall be tranfacted, concluded, and constituted by its authority, in Church or State, with the Royal affent, whether it be by making, enlarging, altering, diminishing, difannulling, repealing, or reviving, of any law, ftatute, act, or ordinance whatfoever, either touching matters ecclefiaftical, civil, common, capital, criminal, martial, maritime, municipal, or any other; of all which the tranfeendent and uncontrollable jurifdiction of that Court is capable to take cognizance.

Amongst the three things which the Athenian Captain thanked the gods for, one was, that he was born a Grecian, and not a Barbarian, (for fuch was the vanity of the Greeks, and, after them, of the Romans in the flourish of their monarchy, as to arrogate all civility to themselves, and to terme all the world befides Barbarians:) so I may say that I rejoyce, that I was born a vaffall to the Crown of England; that I was born under fo well moulded and tempered a Government,v ,which endows the fubject with such Liberties and infranchisements that bear-up his naturall courage, and keep him still in heart fuch Liberties that fence and fecure him eternally from

the gripes and tallons of Tyranny: And all this may be inputed to the Authority and wifedome of this High Court of Parlement, wherein there is fuch a rare co-ordination of power (though the Soveraignty remain ftill entire, and untransferrable, in the person of the Prince) there is such a wholfom mixture 'twixt Monarchy, Optimacy, and Democracy, 'twixt Prince, Peers, and Commonalty, during the time of confultation, that of fo many diftinct parts, by a rare co-operation and unanimity, they make but one Body politick, (like that fheafe of arrows in the Emblem) one entire concentricall peece, the King being ftill the Head, and the refults of their deliberations but as fo many harmonious diapafons arifing from different ftrings. And what greater immunity and happineffe can there be to a Peeple, than to be liable to no Laws but what they make themselves to be fubject to no contribution, affeffement, or any pecuniary erogations whatsoever, but what they Vote, and voluntarily yeeld unto, themfelves: for in this compacted politick Body, there be all degrees of people represented; both the Mechanick, Tradefman, Merchant, and Yeoman have their inclufive Vote, as well as the Gentry, in the perfons of their Trustees, their Knights and Burgeffes, in paffing of all things.

Nor is this Soveraign Surintendent Council an Epitome of this Kingdom only, but it may be faid to have a reprefentation of the whole Univerfe; as I heard a fluent, wellworded, Knight deliver the laft parliament, who compared the beautifull compofure of that High Court to the great work of God, the World itfelf; the King is as the Sun, the Nobles the fixed Stars, the Itinerant Judges and other Officers (that go upon Meffages 'twixt both houfes) to the Planets; the Clergy, to the Element of Fire; the Commons, to the folid Body of Earth, and the rest of the Elements. And, to pursue this comparison a little farther; as the hea

venly