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 imperfectly learned
from New York was equally offensive to them, whether it
interfered with their cherished 'trade with Africa,' or
their favorite monopolies elsewhere."

Discouraged by the failure of the House and General Court to pass
measures hostile to the slave-trade, the people in the outlying towns
began to instruct their representatives, in unmistakable language, to
urge the enactment of repressive legislation on this subject. At a
town meeting in Salem on the 18th of May, 1773,[387] the
representatives were instructed to prevent, by appropriate
legislation, the further importation of slaves into the colony, as
"repugnant to the natural rights of mankind, and highly prejudicial to
the Province." On the very next day, May 19, 1773, at a similar
meeting in the town of Leicester, the people gave among other
instructions to Thomas Denny, their representative, the following on
the question of slavery:--

"And, as we have the highest regard for (so as even to
revere the name of) liberty, we cannot behold but with the
greatest abhorrence any of our fellow-creatures in a state
of slavery.

"Therefore we strictly enjoin you to use your utmost
influence that a stop maybe put to the slave-trade by the
inhabitants of this Province; which, we apprehend, may be
effected by one of these two ways: either by laying a heavy
duty on every negro imported or brought from Africa or
elsewhere into this Province; or by making a law, that every
negro brought or imported as aforesaid should be a free man
or woman as soon as they come within the jurisdiction of it;
and that every negro child that shall be born in said
government after the enacting such law should be free at the
same age that the children of white people are; and, from
the time of their birth till they are capable of earning
their living, to be maintained by the town in which they are
born, or at the expense of the Province, as shall appear
most reasonable.

"Thus, by enacting such a law, in process of time will the
blacks become free; or, if the Honorable House of