tating the outrage thereby committed as
threefold in its nature, namely murder, man-stealing, and Sabbath-
breaking; inasmuch as the offence of "chasing the negers, as aforesayde,
upon the Sabbath day (being a servile work, and such as cannot be
considered under any other head) is expressly capital by the law of God;"
for which reason he prays that the offenders may be brought to justice,
"soe that the sin they have committed may be upon their own heads and not
upon ourselves."

Upon this petition the General Court passed the following order,
eminently worthy of men professing to rule in the fear and according to
the law of God,--a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that do
well:--

"The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the first opportunity
to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing, as
also to prescribe such timely redress for what has passed, and such a law
for the future as may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to
have to do in such vile and odious courses, justly abhorred of all good
and just men, do order that the negro interpreter, and others unlawfully
taken, be by the first opportunity, at the charge of the country for the
present, sent to his native country, Guinea, and a letter with him of the
indignation of the Court thereabout, and justice thereof, desiring our
honored Governor would please put this order in execution."

There is, so far as we know, no historical record of the actual return of
these stolen men to their home. A letter is extant, however, addressed
in behalf of the General Court to a Mr. Williams on the Piscataqua, by
whom one of the negroes had been purchased, requesting him to send the
man forthwith to Boston, that he may be sent home, "which this Court do
resolve to send back without delay."

Three years after, in 1649, the following law was placed upon the
statute-book of the Massachusetts Colony:--

"If any man stealeth a man, or mankind, he shall surely be put to death."

It will thus be seen that these early attempts to introduce slavery into
New England were opposed by severe laws and by that strong popular
sentiment in favor of human liberty which characterized the Christian
radicals who laid the foundations of the Colonies. It was not the rigor
of her Northern winter, nor the unkindly soil of Massachusetts, which
discouraged the introduction of slavery in the first half-century of her
existence as a colony. It was the