Dec. 1766." _Records of the Superior Court
of Judicature_ (_vol._ 1766-7), _page_ 175.

The next of the "freedom cases," in chronological order, was the case
of Newport _vs._ Billing, and was doubtless the one in which John
Adams was engaged in the latter part of September, 1768.[393] It was
begun in the Inferior Court, where the decision was against the slave,
Amos Newport. The plaintiff took an appeal to the highest court in the
colony; and that court gave as its solemn opinion, "that the said Amos
[Newport] was not a freeman, as he alleged, but the proper slave of
the said Joseph [Billing]."[394] It should not be lost sight of, that
not only the Fundamental laws of 1641, but the highest court in
Massachusetts, held, as late as 1768, that there was property in man!

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 d