We, the subscribers, your humble petitioners, desire that you would, in your capacity, put a stroke in your next warrant for calling a town meeting, so that it may legally be laid before said town, by way of vote, to know the mind of said town, whether all free negroes and mulattoes shall have the same privileges in this said Town of Dartmouth as the white people have, respecting places of profit, choosing of officers, and the like, together with all other privileges in all cases that shall or may happen or be brought in this our said Town of Dartmouth. We, your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, [Signed] "JOHN CUFFE, "PAUL CUFFE, "Dated at Dartmouth, the 22d of the 4th mo., 1781," As early as 1788 Massachusetts passed a law requiring all Negroes who were not citizens, to leave the Commonwealth within two months from the date of the publication of the law. It has been said, upon good authority, that this law was drawn by several of the ablest lawyers in the Bay State, and was intended to keep out all Negroes from the South who, being emancipated, might desire to settle there. It became a law on the 26th of March, 1788, and instead of becoming a dead letter, was published and enforced in post-haste. The following section is the portion of the act pertinent to this inquiry. "V. _Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid_ [the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled], that no person being an African or Negro, other than a subject of the Emperor of Morocco, or a citizen of some one of the United States (to be evidenced by a certificate from the Secretary of the State of which he shall be a citizen), shall tarry within this Commonwealth, for a longer time than two months, and upon complaint made to any Justice of the Peace within this Commonwealth, that any such person has been within the same more than two months, the said Justice shall order the said person to depart out of this Commonwealth, and in case that the said African or Negro shall not depart as aforesaid, any Justice of the Peace within this Commonwealth, upon complaint and proof made that such person has continued within this Commonwealth ten days after notice given him or her to depart as aforesaid, shall commit the said person to any house of correction within the county, there to be kept to hard labor, agreeable to the rules and orders of the said house, until the Sessions of the Peace, next to be holden within and for the said county; and the master of the said house of correction is hereby required and directed to transmit an attested copy of the warrant of commitment to the said Court on the first day of their said session, and if upon