[337] Mr. Palfrey is disposed to hang a very weighty matter on a very slender thread of authority.  He says, “In the list of men capable of bearing arms, at Plymouth, in 1643, occurs the name of ’Abraham Pearse, the Black-moore,’ from which we infer ... that Negroes were not dispensed from military service in that colony” (History of New England, vol. ii. p. 30, note).  This single case is borne down by the laws and usages of the colonists on this subject.  Negroes as a class were absolutely excluded from the military service, from the commencement of the colony down to the war with Great Britain.

[338] Slavery in Mass., Appendix, p. 243.

[339] Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll., vol. viii. 3d Series, p. 336.

[340] Lyman’s Report, 1822.

[341] Mather’s Magnalia, Book III., p. 207.  Compare also p. 209.

[342] Elliott’s New-England Hist., vol. ii. p. 165.

[343] Mr. Palfrey comes again with his single and exceptional case, asking us to infer a rule therefrom.  See History of New England, note, p. 30.

[344] Chief-Justice Parker, in Andover vs.  Canton, 13 Mass. p. 550.

[345] Slavery in Mass., p. 62.

[346] Mott’s Sketches, p. 17.

[347] At the early age of sixteen, in the year 1770, Phillis was baptized into the membership of the society worshipping in the “Old South Meeting-House.”  The gifted, eloquent, and noble Dr. Sewall was the pastor.  This was an exception to the rule, that slaves were not baptized into the Church.

[348] All writers I have seen on this subject—­and I think I have seen all—­leave the impression that Miss Wheatley’s poems were first published in London.  This is not true.  The first published poems from her pen were issued in Boston in 1770.  But it was a mere pamphlet edition, and has long since perished.

[349] All the historians but Sparks omit the given name of Peters.  It was John.

[350] The date usually given for her death is 1780, while her age is fixed at twenty-six.  The best authority gives the dates above, and I think they are correct.

[351] “Her correspondence was sought, and it extended to persons of distinction even in England, among whom may be named the Countess of Huntingdon, Whitefield, and the Earl of Dartmouth.”—­SPARKS’S Washington, vol. iii. p. 298, note.

[352] Sparks’s Washington, vol iii. p. 299, note.

[353] This destroys the last hope I have nursed for nearly six years that the poem might yet come to light.  Somehow I had overlooked this note.

[354] Sparks’s Washington, vol iii. p. 288.

[355] Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 297, 298.

[356] Armistead’s A Tribute to the Negro, pp. 460, 461.

[357] Douglass, vol. ii. p. 345, note.

[358] Hildreth, vol. ii. p. 426.

[359] Pearce vs. Lisle, Ambler, 76.