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The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 7. (ed. John Greenleaf Whittier), Zzz Missing head (search)
it his consent to the bill; but he told them his instructions forbade him. A similar committee waiting upon General Gage received the same answer. In the year 1770 a servant of Richard Lechmere, of Cambridge, stimulated by the general discussion of the slavery question and by the advice of some of the zealous advocates of emancipation, brought an action against his master for detaining him in bondage. The suit was decided in his favor two years before the similar decision in the case of Somerset in England. The funds necessary for carrying on this suit were raised among the blacks themselves. Other suits followed in various parts of the Province; and the result was, in every instance, the freedom of the plaintiff. In 1773 Caesar Hendrick sued his master, one Greenleaf, of Newburyport, for damages, laid at fifty pounds, for holding him as a slave. The jury awarded him his freedom and eighteen pounds. According to Dr. Belknap, whose answers to the queries on the subject, propo