Adams Papers

Wetmore’s Minutes of the Trial: Essex Inferior Court, Newburyport, September 1771

Wetmore’s Minutes of the Trial1

Essex Inferior Court, Newburyport, September 1771

Caesar v. Taylor. Trespass for detention in slavery. Plea non cul. Besides the usual proof of liberty, the plaintiff brot witnesses to prove a contract between him and defendant that he shoud be free on payment of a sum of Money and that the money was partly paid and that the Time of payment is not yet expired.

For defendant was read the province Law shewing negroes to be slaves and that they can’t be manumitted without first giving bond,2 which was not done in the present Case &c.

But answerd by Plaintiff that the Province law doth not make any negroes slaves if it did it being contra. to Laws of God and reason must be void. And [. . .] error &c. [about?] in different matters may make [jus] but not in essentials as life liberty &c.

1. Wetmore Notes. Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 184. This document, and those which follow from the Wetmore Notes contain many contractions (here mostly expanded) and little punctuation (here partly supplied). Particular passages may be difficult to interpret, but the sense is clear.

2. “An Act Relating to Molato and Negro Slaves,” 28 July 1703, c.1, 1 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 519.

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    Adams Papers
    Title
    Wetmore’s Minutes of the Trial: Essex Inferior Court, Newburyport, September 1771
    Author
    Wetmore, William
    Date
    September 1771

    Reference

    Cite as
    “Wetmore’s Minutes of the Trial: Essex Inferior Court, Newburyport, September 1771,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/05-02-02-0004-0005-0001. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Legal Papers of John Adams, vol. 2, Cases 31–62, ed. L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965, pp. 59–60.]