Penfyjlvamay Philadelphia* 397 



has a difFerent effedt, therefore to prevent 

 any difagreeable mixtures of the white peo- 

 ple and Negroes, and that the Negroes may 

 not form too great an opinion of them- 

 felves, to the difadvantage of their mafters, 

 I 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 fometimes mix, ap- 

 pears from children of a mixed complexion, 

 which are fometimes born. 



It is likewife greatly to be pitied, that 

 the mafters of thefe Negroes in moft of the 

 Englijh colonies take little care of their 

 fpiritual welfare, and let them live on in 

 their pagan darknefs. There are even fame, 

 who would be very ill pleafed at, and would 

 by all means hinder their Negroes from be- 

 ing inftrudted in the dodlrines of chriftianity, 

 to this they are partly led by the conceit 

 of its being fhameful, to have a fpiritual 

 brother or lifter among fo defpicable a peo- 

 ple, partly by thinking that they Ihould not 

 be able to keep their Negroes fo meanly 

 afterwards ; and partly through fear of the 

 Negroes growing too proud, on feeing 

 themfelves upon a level with their mafters 

 in religious matters. 



Several writings are well known, which 

 mentipn, that the Negroes in South Ame- 

 rica 



