the severall offenders may be imprisoned by the order of this court, and brought into their deserved censure in convenient time; and this I humbly crave that soe the sinn they have committed may be upon their own heads, and not upon ourselves (as otherwise it will.)

                              Yrs in all christean observance,
                                        Richard Saltonstall.

     The house of deputs thinke meete that this petition shall be
     granted, and desire our honored magistrats concurrence
     herein.

         &nb
sp;                                             Edward Rawson. 
                              —­Coffin’s Newbury, pp. 335, 336.

[293] Laws Camb., 1675, p. 15.

[294] Hildreth, vol. i. p. 368.

[295] Coffin, p. 335.

[296] Drake (p. 288) says, “This act, however, was afterwards repealed or disregarded.”

[297] Mass.  Records, vol ii. p 129.

[298] Moore, Appendix, 251, sq.

[299] Slavery in Mass., p. 30.

[300] Hildreth, vol. i. p, 282.

[301] Slavery in Mass., p. 49.  See, also, Drake’s Boston, p. 441, note.

[302] Mass.  Hist.  Coll., vol. viii. 3d Series, p. 337.

[303] Slavery in Mass., p. 50.

[304] Coll.  Amer.  Stat.  Asso., vol. i. p. 586.

[305] Douglass’s British Settlements, vol. i. p. 531.

[306] Drake, p. 714.  I cannot understand how Dr. Moore gets 1,514 slaves in Boston in 1742, except from Douglass.  His “1742” should read 1752, and his “1,514” slaves should read 1,541 slaves.

[307] “There is a curious illustration of ‘the way of putting it’ in Massachusetts, in Mr. Felt’s account of this ‘census of slaves,’ in the Collections of the American Statistical Association, vol. i. p, 208.  He says that the General Court passed this order ’for the purpose of having an accurate account of slaves in our Commonwealth, as a subject in which the people were becoming much interested, relative to the cause of liberty!” There is not a particle of authority for this suggestion—­such a motive for their action never existed anywhere but in the imagination of the writer himself!”—­Slavery in Mass., p. 51, note.

[308] Ancient Charters and Laws of Mass., p. 748.

[309] Ibid.

[310] Slavery in Mass., p. 61.

[311] Hildreth, vol. ii. pp. 269, 270.

[312] Drake’s Boston, p. 574.

[313] Spectator, No. 215, Nov. 6, 1711.

[314] Slavery in Mass., p. 64.

[315] “In the inventory of the estate of Samuel Morgaridge, who died in 1754, I find,

’Item, three negroes   L133, 6_s._, 8_d._
Item, flax              L12, 2_s._, 8.’

“In the inventory of Henry Rolfe’s estate, taken in April, 1711, I find the following, namely,