does not appear; probably, not long. No further legislation was enacted
until 1762 or 1763, when a prohibitive duty was laid on account of "the
inconvenience the Province is exposed to in lying open to the free
importation of Negros, when the Provinces on each side have laid duties
on them."[50] The Board of Trade declared that while they did not object
to "the Policy of imposing a reasonable duty," they could not assent to
this, and the act was disallowed.[51] The Act of 1769 evaded the
technical objection of the Board of Trade, and laid a duty of £15 on the
first purchasers of Negroes, because, as the act declared, "Duties on
the Importation of Negroes in several of the neighbouring Colonies
hath, on Experience, been found beneficial in the Introduction of sober,
industrious Foreigners."[52] In 1774 a bill which, according to the
report of the Council to Governor Morris, "plainly intended an entire
Prohibition of all Slaves being imported from foreign Parts," was thrown
out by the Council.[53] Importation was finally prohibited in 1786.[54]


15. ~General Character of these Restrictions.~ The main difference in
motive between the restrictions which the planting and the farming
colonies put on the African slave-trade, lay in the fact that the former
limited it mainly from fear of insurrection, the latter mainly because
it did not pay. Naturally, the latter motive worked itself out with much
less legislation than the former; for this reason, and because they held
a smaller number of slaves, most of these colonies have fewer actual
statutes than the Southern colonies. In Pennsylvania alone did this
general economic revolt against the trade acquire a distinct moral
tinge. Although even here the institution was naturally doomed, yet the
clear moral insight of the Quakers checked the trade much earlier than
would otherwise have happened. We may say, then, that the farming
colonies checked the slave-trade primarily from economic motives.