310 December 1748. 



live among them, and they even fometimes in-* 

 term-:rry, as I myfelf have feea. 



THE Negroes have therefore been upwards of 

 a hundred and thirty years in this country : bqt 

 the winters here, efpecially in New England and 

 New York, are as feyere as our Swedifh winters. 

 1 therefore very carefully enquired, whether the 

 cold had not been obferved to affect the colour 

 of the Negroes, and to change it, fo that the 

 third or fourth generation from the firfl that 

 came hither, were not fo black as their anceftors. 

 But I was generally anfwered, that there was not 

 the leaft difference of colour to be perceived -, and 

 that a Negro born here, of parents which were 

 likewife born in this country, and whofe ancef- 

 tors both men and women had all been blacks 

 born in this country, up to the third or fourth 

 generation, was not at all different in colour, 

 from thofe Negroes who are brought directly 

 over from Africa. From hence many people 

 conclude, that a Negro or his poflerity do not 

 change colour, though they continue ever fa 

 long in a cold climate ; but the mixing of a 

 white man with a Negro woman, or of a Negro 

 with a white woman, has a different effect; there- 

 fore to prevent any difagreeable mixtures of the 

 white people and Negroes, and that the Negroes 

 may not form too great an opinion of them- 

 felves, to the difadvantage of their mafters, J am 

 told there is a law made, prohibiting the whites 

 of both fexes to marry Negroes, under pain of 

 death, and deprivation of the clergyman who 

 marries them: but that the whites and blacks 

 4 fometimes 



