was so altered and curtailed by the council, then the upper
house, that the other house were offended, and would not
concur, and thus it failed. Had it passed both houses in
any form whatever, governor BERNARD would not have con-
sented to it.

In 1773, another attempt of the same kind was made. It
was grounded on a petition from the negroes, which was
read in the assembly June 23, and referred to the next session.
In January, 1774, a bill was brought in, entitled "an act to
prevent the importation of negroes, and others, as slaves into
this province." It passed all the forms in the two houses,
and was laid before governor HUTCHINSON, for his consent,
March 8. On the next day the assembly was prorogued,
after a morose message from the governor, between whom
and the two houses there had been a warm contest on other
subjects. The negroes had deputed a committee respectfully
to solicit the governor's consent ; but he told them that his
instructions forbad it. His successor, general GAGE, gave
them the same answer, when they waited on him.

The blacks had better success in the judicial courts. A
pamphlet, containing the case of a negro, who had accom-
panied his master from the West-Indies to England, and
had there sued for, and obtained his freedom, was reprinted
here ; and this encouraged several negroes to sue their mas-
ters for their freedom, and for recompense for their service,
after they had attained the age of twenty-one years. The
first trial of this kind was in 1770. The negroes collected
money among themselves to carry on the suit, and it termin-
ated favourably for them. Other suits were instituted be-
tween that time and the revolution, and the juries invariably
gave their verdict in favour of liberty. The pleas on the
part of the masters were, that the negroes were purchased in
open market, and bills of sale were produced in evidence ;
that the laws of the province recognized slavery as exist-
ing in it, by declaring that no person should manumit his
slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c. On
the part of the blacks it was pleaded, that the royal charter
expressly declared all persons born or residing in the prov-
ince, to be as free as the king's subjects in Great-Britain ;
that by the laws of England, no man could be deprived of
his liberty but by the judgment of his peers ; that the laws
of the province respecting an evil existing, and attempting to