1778, an "Act to prevent the further importation of Slaves" stopped
definitively the legal slave-trade to Virginia.[34]


8. ~Restrictions in Maryland.~[35] Not until the impulse of the Assiento
had been felt in America, did Maryland make any attempt to restrain a
trade from which she had long enjoyed a comfortable revenue. The Act of
1717, laying a duty of 40_s._,[36] may have been a mild restrictive
measure. The duties were slowly increased to 50_s._ in 1754,[37] and £4.
in 1763.[38] In 1771 a prohibitive duty of £9 was laid;[39] and in 1783,
after the war, all importation by sea was stopped and illegally imported
Negroes were freed.[40]

Compared with the trade to Virginia and the Carolinas, the slave-trade
to Maryland was small, and seems at no time to have reached proportions
which alarmed the inhabitants. It was regulated to the economic demand
by a slowly increasing tariff, and finally, after 1769, had nearly
ceased of its own accord before the restrictive legislation of
Revolutionary times.[41] Probably the proximity of Maryland to Virginia
made an independent slave-trade less necessary to her.


9. ~General Character of these Restrictions.~ We find in the planting
colonies all degrees of advocacy of the trade, from the passiveness of
Maryland to the clamor of Georgia. Opposition to the trade did not
appear in Georgia, was based almost solely on political fear of
insurrection in Carolina, and sprang largely from the same motive in
Virginia, mingled with some moral repugnance. As a whole, it may be said
that whatever opposition to the slave-trade there was in the planting
colonies was based principally on the political fear of insurrection.