S. HOLTEN, DAN'L HOPKINS."

On the Journal of the House, p. 106, appears the following record,--

"David Sewall, Esq., brought down the resolve which passed
the House yesterday, forbidding the sale of two negroes,
with the following vote of Council thereon, viz _In
Council_, Sept. 14, 1776. Read and concurred, as taken into
a new draught. Sent down for concurrence. Read and
non-concurred, and the House adhere to their own vote. Sent
up for concurrence."

The resolve, as it originally appeared, was dragged through a tedious
debate, non-concurred in by the House, recommitted, remodelled, and
sent back, when it finally passed.

"LXXXIII. Resolve forbidding the sale of two Negroes brought
in as Prisoners; Passed September 14, [16th,] 1776.

"Whereas this Court is credibly informed that two Negro Men
lately taken on the High Seas, on board the sloop
_Hannibal_, and brought into this State as Prisoners, are
advertized to be sold at _Salem_, the 17th instant, by
public Auction:

"_Resolved_, That all Persons concerned with the said
Negroes be, and they are hereby forbidden to sell them, or
in any manner to treat them otherwise than is already
ordered for the Treatment of Prisoners taken in like manner;
and if any Sale of the said Negroes shall be made it is
hereby declared null and void, and that whenever it shall
appear that any Negroes are taken on the High Seas and
brought as Prisoners into this State, they shall not be
allowed to be Sold, nor treated any otherwise than as
Prisoners are ordered to be treated who are taken in like
Manner."[589]

It looked like a new resolve. The pronounced and advanced sentiment in
favor of the equal rights of all created beings had been taken out,
and it appeared now as a war measure, warranted upon military policy.
This is the only chaplet that the most devout friends of
Massachusetts can weave out of her acts on the Negro problem during
the colonial period, to place upon her brow. It attracted wide-spread
and deserved attention.

During the following month, on the 14th of October, 1776, the
Continental Congress appointed a special committee, Messrs. Lee,
Wilson, and Hall, "to consider what is to be done with Negroes taken
by vessels of war, in the service of the United States." Here was a
profound legal problem prese