rights adopted severally by
Virginia in 1776, Massachusetts in 1780, and New Hampshire in 1784. In the
first of these the holding of slaves persisted undisturbed by this action;
and in New Hampshire the custom died from the dearth of slaves rather than
from the natural-rights clause. In Massachusetts likewise it is plain
from copious contemporary evidence that abolition was not intended by the
framers of the bill of rights nor thought by the people or the officials to
have been accomplished thereby.[5] One citizen, indeed, who wanted to keep
his woman slave but to be rid of her child soon to be born, advertised in
the _Independent Chronicle_ of Boston at the close of 1780: "A negro child,
soon expected, of a good breed, may be owned by any person inclining to
take it, and money with it."[6] The courts of the commonwealth, however,
soon began to reflect anti-slavery sentiment, as Lord Mansfield had done in
the preceding decade in England,[7] and to make use of the bill of rights
to destroy the masters' dominion. The decisive case was the prosecution of
Nathaniel Jennison of Worcester County for assault and imprisonment alleged
to have been committed upon his absconded slave Quork Walker in the process
of his recovery. On the trial in 1783 the jury responded to a strong
anti-slavery charge from Chief Justice Cushing by returning a verdict
against Jennison, and the court fined him L50 and costs.

[Footnote 5: G.H. Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in
Massachusetts_, pp. 181-209.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., p. 208. So far as the present writer's knowledge
extends, this item is without parallel at any other time or place.]

[Footnote 7: The case of James Somerset on _habeas corpus_, in Howell's
_State Trials_, XX, Sec.548.]

This action prompted the negroes generally to leave their masters, though
some were deterred "on account of their age and infirmities, or because
they did not know how to provide for themselves, or for some pecuniary
consideration."[8] The former slaveholders now felt a double grievance:
they were deprived of their able-bodied negroes but were not relieved of
the legal obligation to support such others as remained on their hands.
Petitions for their relief were considered by the legislature but never
acted upon. The legal situation continued vague, for although an act of
1788 forbade citizens to trade in slaves and another penalized the sojourn
for more than two months in Massachusetts of negroes fr