Whatever inclination the first inhabitants of Virginia might have to encourage slavery, a disposition to check its progress, and increase, manifested itself in the legislature even before the close of the last century. So long ago as the year 1669 we find the title of an act [Edit. of 1733. c. 12.], laying an imposition upon _servants_, and _slaves_, imported into this country; which was either continued, revised, or increased, by a variety of temporary acts, passed between that period and the revolution in 1776.[14]--One of these acts passed in 1723, by a marginal note appears to have been repealed by proclamation, Oct. 24, 1724. In 1732 a duty of five per cent. was laid on slaves imported, to be paid by the buyers; a measure calculated to render it as little obnoxious as possible to the _English_ merchants trading to Africa, and not improbably suggested by them, to the privy council in England. The preamble to this act is in these remarkable words, "We your majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, &c. taking into our serious consideration the exigencies of your government here, and that the duty laid upon liquors will not be sufficient to defray the necessary expences thereof, do humbly represent to your majesty, that _no other_ duty can be laid upon our import or export, without oppressing your subjects, than a duty upon _slaves imported_, to be paid by the buyers, _agreeable to your majesty's instructions_ to your lieutenant governor." This act was only for the short period of four years, but seems to have been continued from time to time till the year 1751, when the duty expired, but was revived the next year. In the year 1740 an additional duty of five per cent. was imposed for four years, for the purpose of an expedition against the Spaniards, &c. to be likewise paid by the buyers: and in 1742 the whole duty was continued till July 1, 1747.--The act of 1752, by which these duties were revived and continued (as well as several former acts), takes notice that the duty had been found _no ways burdensome to the traders_ in slaves. In 1754 an additional duty of five per cent. was imposed for the term of three years, by an act for encouraging and protecting the settlers on the Missisippi: this duty, like all the former, was to be paid by the buyers. In 1759 a duty of 20 per cent. was imposed upon all slaves imported into Virginia from Maryland, North Carolina, or other places in America, to continue for seven years. In 1769 the same duty was further continued. In the same session the duty of five per cent. was continued for three years, and an additional duty of ten per cent. to be likewise paid by the buyers, was imposed for seven years; and a further duty of five per cent. was, by a separate act of the same session, imposed for the better support of the contingent charges of government, to be paid by the buyers. In 1772 all these duties were further continued for the term of five years from the expiration of the acts then in force: the assembly at the same time petitioned the throne,[15] _to remove all those restraints which inhibited_ his majesty's governors assenting to such _laws_ as _might check so very pernicious a commerce_, as that of slavery.