The case of James vs. Lechmere is the one “which has been for more than half a century the grand cheval de bataille of the champions of the historic fame of Massachusetts."[395] Richard Lechmere resided in Cambridge, and held to servitude for life a Negro named “James.”  On the 2d of May, 1769, this slave began an action in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas.  The action was “in trespass for assault and battery, and imprisoning and holding the plaintiff in servitude from April 11, 1758, to the date of the writ.”  The judgment of the Inferior Court was adverse to the slave; but on the 31st of October, 1769, the Superior Court of Suffolk had the case settled by compromise.  A long line of worthies in Massachusetts have pointed with pride to this decision as the legal destruction of slavery in that State.  But it “is shown by the records and files of Court to have been brought up from the Inferior Court by sham demurrer, and, after one or two continuances, settled by the parties."[396] The truth of history demands that the facts be given to the world.  It will not be pleasant for the people of Massachusetts to have this delusion torn from their affectionate embrace.  It was but a mere historical chimera, that ought not to have survived a single day; and, strangely enough, it has existed until the present time among many intelligent people.  This case has been cited for the last hundred years as having settled the question of bond servitude in Massachusetts, when the fact is, there was no decision in this instance!  And the claim that Richard Lechmere’s slave James was adjudged free “upon the same grounds, substantially, as those upon which Lord Mansfield discharged Sommersett,” is absurd and baseless.[397] For on the 27th of April, 1785 (thirteen years after the famous decision), Lord Mansfield himself said, in reference to the Sommersett case, “that his decision went no farther than that the master cannot by force compel the slave to go out of the kingdom.”  Thirty-five years of suffering and degradation remained for the Africans after the decision of Lord Mansfield.  His lordship’s decision was rendered on the 22d of June, 1772; and in 1807, thirty-five years afterwards, the British government abolished the slave-trade.  And then, after twenty-seven years more of reflection, slavery was abolished in English possessions. So, sixty-two years after Lord Mansfield’s decision, England emancipated her slaves! It took only two generations for the people to get rid of slavery under the British flag.  How true, then, that “facts are stranger than fiction”!

In 1770 John Swain of Nantucket brought suit against Elisha Folger, captain of the vessel “Friendship,” for allowing a Mr. Roth to receive on board his ship a Negro boy named “Boston,” and for the recovery of the slave.  This was a jury-trial in the Court of Common Pleas.  The jury brought in a verdict in favor of the slave, and he was “manumitted by the magistrates.”  John Swain took an appeal from the decision of the Nantucket Court to the Supreme Court of Boston, but never prosecuted it.[398] In 1770, in Hanover, Plymouth County, a Negro asked his master to grant him his freedom as his right.  The master refused; and the Negro, with assistance of counsel, succeeded in obtaining his liberty.[399]