chap, i.] WEST INDIES. 2117 
had been immediately released from slavery by deed 
or will of their owners. While the former were 
allowed a trial by jury in criminal cases* the latter 
were tried in the same way as the common slaves* 
by two justices and three freeholders. Neither 
were the latter admitted as evidences against free¬ 
born persons, until the year 1748, when an act was 
passed in their favour, putting both classes on the 
same footing. 
At the same time, the legal capacities which 
they possessed, were very imperfectly defined; 
The mulattoes were allowed no other privilege, 
than the free negroes, concerning whom, (few of 
them being baptized, or supposed to be sensible of 
the nature of an oath), the courts of law interpreted 
the act of manumission by the owner, as nothing 
more than an abandonment, or release of his own 
proper authority over the person of the slave, 
which did not, and could not* convey to the ob¬ 
ject of his bounty, the civil and political rights 
of a natural-born subject; and the same principle 
was applied to the issue of freed mothers, until af¬ 
ter the third generation from the negro ancestor. 
The principal incapacities to which these people 
are now subject, as distinct from the whites; are 
these.— 
First; In most of the British islands, their evi¬ 
dence is not received in criminal cases against a 
white person, nor even against a person of colour, 
Vol. IF 
e e 
