In the spring of 1771 the subject of suppressing the slave-trade was again introduced into the Legislature.  On the 12th of April a bill “To prevent the Importation of slaves from Africa” was introduced, and read the first time, and, upon the question “When shall the bill be read again?” was ordered to a second reading on the day following at ten o’clock.  Accordingly, on the 13th, the bill was read a second time, and postponed till the following Tuesday morning.  On the 16th it was recommitted.  On the 19th of the same month a “Bill to prevent the Importation of Negro slaves into this Province” was read a first time, and ordered to a second reading “to-morrow at eleven o’clock.”  On the following day it was read a second time, and made the special order for three o’clock on the following Monday.  On the 22d, Monday, it was read a third time, and placed upon its passage and engrossed.  On the 24th it passed the House.  When it reached the Council James Otis proposed an amendment, and a motion prevailed that the bill lie upon the table.  But it was taken from the table, and the amendment of Otis was concurred in by the House.  It passed the Council in the latter part of April, but failed to receive the signature of the governor, on the ground that he was “not authorized by Parliament."[386] The same reason for refusing his signature was set up by Gen. Gage.  Thus the bill failed.  Gov.  Hutchinson gave his reasons to Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state for the colonies.  The governor thought himself restrained by “instructions” to colonial governors “from assenting to any laws of a new and unusual nature.”  In addition to the foregoing, his Excellency doubted the lawfulness of the legislation to which the “scruple upon the minds of the people in many parts of the province” would lead them; and that he had suggested the propriety of transmitting the bill to England to learn “his Majesty’s pleasure” thereabouts.  Upon these reasons Dr. Moore comments as follows:—­

“These are interesting and important suggestions.  It is apparent that at this time there was no special instruction to the royal governor of Massachusetts, forbidding his approval of acts against the slave-trade.  Hutchinson evidently doubted the genuineness of the ‘chief motive’ which was alleged to be the inspiration of the bill, the ‘meerly moral’ scruple against slavery; but his reasonings furnish a striking illustration of the changes which were going on in public opinion, and the gradual softening of the harsher features of slavery under their influence.  The non-importation agreement throughout the Colonies, by which America was trying to thwart the commercial selfishness of her rapacious Mother, had rendered the provincial viceroys peculiarly sensitive to the slightest manifestation of a disposition to approach the sacred precincts of those prerogatives by which King and Parliament assumed to bind their distant dependencies:  and the ’spirit of non-importation’ which Massachusetts had