In this letter, James Sullivan responds to Jeremy Belknap's dissertation "on the origin and abolition of slavery" Massachusetts.  He suggests that Belknap has overstated the general level of education among enslaved people in Massachusetts.  Sullivan also mentions the Quock Walker case of 1783, a seminal event in the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.  James Sullivan (1744-1808), lawyer and statesman from the province of Maine, was elected the governor of Massachusetts in 1807, was re-elected in 1808, and died in office.