While Phillis Wheatley stands out as one of the most distinguished characters of this period, and who, as a Colored person, had no equal, yet she was not the only individual of her race of intellect and character.  A Negro boy from Africa was purchased by a Mr. Slocum, who resided near New Bedford, Mass.  After he acquired the language, he turned his thoughts to freedom, and in a few years, by working beyond the hours he devoted to his master, was enabled to buy himself from his master.  He married an Indian woman named Ruth Moses, and settled at Cutterhunker, in the Elizabeth Islands, near New Bedford.  In a few years, through industry and frugality, John Cuffe—­the name he took as a freeman—­was enabled to purchase a good farm of one hundred (100) acres.  Every year recorded new achievements, until John Cuffe had a wide reputation for wealth, honesty, and intelligence.  He applied himself to books, and secured, as the ripe fruit of his studious habits, a fair business education.  Both himself and wife were Christian believers; and to lives of industry and increasing secular knowledge, they added that higher knowledge which makes alive to “everlasting life.”  Ten children were born unto them,—­four boys and six girls.  One of the boys, Paul Cuffe, became one of the most distinguished men of color Massachusetts has produced.  The reader will be introduced to him in the proper place in the history.  John Cuffe died in 1745, leaving behind, in addition to considerable property, a good name, which is of great price.[356]

Richard Dalton, Esq., of Boston, owned a Negro boy whom he taught to read any Greek writer without hesitancy.  Mr. Dalton was afflicted with weak eyes; and his fondness for the classics would not allow him to forego the pleasure of them, and hence his Negro boy Caesar was instructed in the Greek.[357] “The Boston Chronicle” of Sept. 21, 1769, contains the following advertisement:  “To be sold, a Likely Little negroe boy, who can speak the French language, and very fit for a Valet.”

With increasing evidence of the Negro’s capacity for mental improvement, and fitness for the duties and blessings of a freeman, and the growing insolence and rigorous policy of the mother country, came a wonderful change in the colony.  The Negroes were emboldened to ask for and claim rights as British subjects, and the more humane element among the whites saw in a relaxation of the severe treatment of the blacks security and immunity in war.  But anti-slavery sentiment in Massachusetts was not born of a genuine desire to put down a wicked and cruel traffic in human beings.  Two things operated in favor of humane treatment of the slaves,—­an impending war, and the decision of Lord Mansfield in the Sommersett case.  The English government was yearly increasing the burdens of the colonists.  The country was young, its resources little known.  The people were largely engaged in agricultural pursuits.  There were no tariff laws encouraging or protecting