Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/33

 girl born in the Province in Wenham in 1759, was a lave belonging to Emeron from 1765 to 1776, when he was freed. This deciion was in November, 1799. Dane's Abridgment,, 412. Thus it appears that the Supreme Judicial Court of Maachuetts intructed a jury in 1796, by an unanimous opinion, that a negro born in the State before the Contitution of 1780, was born free, although born of a female lave. Three years later, the ame Court and the ame judges (three out of four), held a negro girl born in the province in 1759 to have been the lawful lave of a citizen of Maachuetts from 1765 to 1776. In the latter cae, too, the deciion of the Court was given on the quetion of law alone, as preented upon an agreed tatement of the facts. MS. Copy of Court Records

A cae in Connecticut preents an illutration of great importance. It is that of "a fugitive lave, and attempted recue, in Hartford, 1703,” of which an account is given in one of Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull's admirable articles on ome of the Connecticut Statutes. Hitorical Notes, etc., No.

"The case laid before the Honorable General Aembly in October, 1704," after a tatement of facts, etc., proceeds with reaons for the return of the fugitive, ome of which we quote.