know that a large trade to Guinea was carried on for many years by the citizens of Massachusetts Colony, who were the proprietors of the vessels and their cargoes out and home. Some of the slaves were purchased in Guinea, and I suppose the greatest part of them, were sold in the West Indies. Some were brought to Boston and Charlestown, and sold to town and country purchaser by the head, as we sell sheep and oxen.”

There was perhaps no contemporary commentator who was more honest and frank in his writings on Massachusetts history and habits than John Adams; we can always look to him for caustic and cleansing comment on current affairs. He wrote of the decline of slavery in Massachusetts: "Argument might have some weight in the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, but the real cause was the multiplication of labouring white people who would no longer suffer the risk to employ these sable rivals so much to their injury. This principle has kept Negro slavery out of France, England and other parts of Europe." A frank, bold and authoritative statement, disconcerting to Massachusetts apologists and holier-than-thou's.

In 1733, Parliament passed a bill, popularly known as the Molasses Act, practically prohibiting the importation of molasses and rum from the foreign islands. The purpose of the Act was to confine the trade in these commodities to the British sugar islands, for they too had considerable

trade with Africa, and there came into direct competition with the New Englanders for the purchase of slaves. Because the New Englanders were able to buy cheaper molasses from the Dutch and French West Indies, they not only bought less molasses from the English islands, but were able to make cheaper rum and outbid their competitors for African Negroes. And going a little deeper into the matter, we find the principal reason that molasses and rum were cheaper in the French islands was because France would not permit the importation of either rum or molasses, in order that the French brandy distillers might be protected. This naturally caused a large surplus of these two products in the French islands.

Rum was the most suitable commodity for barter in the African slave trade, and it was for this reason that the southern colonies became dependent on the trade between the northern colonies and the West Indies.

Capt. George Scott attempted to trade on the African coast with a cargo of dry goods. He wrote to his Newport owners in 1740. "We left Anamboe ye 8th of May, with most of our people and slaves sick. We have lost 29 slaves. Our purchase was 129. We have five that swell'd and how it will be with them I can't tell. We have one-third of dry cargo left and two hhds. rum. . . I have repented a hundred times buying of them dry goods. Had we laid out two thousand pound

in rum, bread and flour, it would have purchased more in value than all our dry goods."

Another reason for the economic importance of rum to the British Islands was its effect on the cost of producing sugar. George Washington comments on this in his diary in 1751, at which time he was on a visit to Barbados. Here are his remarks on the subject in his own original spelling and grammar: "Canes is from 40 to 70 ton of sugar each ton valued at 20/ out of which a third is deducted for expences unless Rum sells for 2/ and upwards pr. Gallon than it is though the sugar is near clean." Lest the words of our country's Pater be not clear to the reader, I quote from Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" (1776): "It is commonly said that a sugar planter expects that rum and the molasses should defray the whole expense of his cultivation, and that his sugar should be all clear profit."

It was an economic necessity which compelled the continental colonies to export to the foreign West Indies. This arose principally from the nature of the commodities produced. The following statistics, taken by McClellan from Pitkin's Statistical View 1817, showed the demand for New England products was far greater in the West Indies than in England: "In 1770, New England sent to the islands, staves and heads and hoops for barrels and hogsheads, to the value of about £70,000 or about three times as much as was sent to England.

Bread and flour, principally from Pennsylvania, to the amount of 23,449 tons, were exported to the islands, in comparison with 263 tons sent to England. In the shipping of fish, we find that of the better dried fish, 431,386 quintals went to the south of Europe, 206,081 quintals to the West Indies, and only 22,086 to Great Britain. Of the products of the fisheries, however, there remained a great quantity of low-grade pickled fish which could find an adequate market only in the West Indies, which consumed 29,582 barrels of a total of 30,068."

John Adams observed in 1778: "One part (the low grade) of our fish went to the West Indies for rum, and molasses to be distilled into rum, which injured our health and our morals. The other part (the high grade) went to Spain and Portugal for gold and silver, almost the whole of which went to London." Apparently Adams did not think well of the colonists' end of the trade. It can readily be seen that the success of the New England fisheries was dependent upon the rum and molasses trade with the West Indies, as in fact was the whole economic structure of New England, and it is easy to understand why the colonists did not take kindly to the Molasses Act.

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General Bernard of Massachusetts wrote in 1764: "If conniving at foreign sugars and molas

ses. . . .is to be reckoned corruption, there never was, I believe, an incorrupt Customs officer in America until within twelve months." From the same source, we also have the following statement, to wit, that 15,000 hogsheads of molasses were imported into Massachusetts in 1763, "all of which, except less than 500, came from ports which are now foreign"; in other words, 14,500 were smuggled in.

In Rhode Island, there existed a similar situation in regard to the importation of molasses; about 150 Rhode Island vessels went to the West Indies annually, bringing to the colony 14,000 hogsheads of molasses. Not over 22,500 barrels originated in the British Islands.

As can be deduced from the above, little attempt was made to enforce the Molasses Act, and that little was perfunctory, subject to further laxity upon the careful distribution of the necessary emolument. Authorities are agreed that the Molasses Act, had it been enforced, would have wrecked the commerce of the northern colonies and ruined merchants. Viewed from all angles, it was a most unwise measure.

James Otis asserted that if the King of Great Britain in person were encamped on Boston Common, at the head of 20,000 men, with all his navy on our coast, he would not be able to execute these laws.

The following letter from Gilbert Deblois, a