he encouragement he must give to the slave-trade, the
House replied: "We have considered his Maj^{ties} Instruction relating
to an Impost on Negroes & Felons, to which this House answers, that
there never was any duties laid on either, by this Goverm^{t}, and so
few bro't in that it would not be worth the Publick notice, so as to
make an act concerning them."[14] This remained true for the whole
history of the colony. Importation was never stopped by actual
enactment, but was eventually declared contrary to the Constitution of
1784.[15] The participation of citizens in the trade appears never to
have been forbidden.

19. ~Restrictions in Massachusetts.~ The early Biblical codes of
Massachusetts confined slavery to "lawfull Captives taken in iust
warres, & such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to
us."[16] The stern Puritanism of early days endeavored to carry this out
literally, and consequently when a certain Captain Smith, about 1640,
attacked an African village and brought some of the unoffending natives
home, he was promptly arrested. Eventually, the General Court ordered
the Negroes sent home at the colony's expense, "conceiving themselues
bound by y^e first oportunity to bear witnes against y^e haynos & crying
sinn of manstealing, as also to P'scribe such timely redresse for what
is past, & such a law for y^e future as may sufficiently deterr all
oth^{r}s belonging to us to have to do in such vile & most odious
courses, iustly abhored of all good & iust men."[17]

The temptation of trade slowly forced the colony from this high moral
ground. New England ships were early found in the West Indian
slave-trade, and the more the carrying trade developed, the more did the
profits of this branch of it attract Puritan captains. By the beginning
of the eighteenth century the slave-trade was openly recognized as
legitimate commerce; cargoes came regularly to Boston, and "The
merchants of Boston quoted negroes, like any other merchandise demanded
by their correspondents."[18] At the same time, the Puritan conscience
began to rebel against the growth of actual slavery on New England soil.
It was a much less violent wrenching of moral ideas of right and wrong
to allow Massachusetts men to carry slaves to South Carolina than to
allow cargoes to come into Boston, and become slaves in Massachusetts.
Early in the eighteenth century, therefore, opposition arose to the
further importation of Negroes, and in 1705