Certain of the colonies attempted to prevent the sale of spirituous liquors to Indian and other slaves. At the time of King Philip’s War, Massachusetts forbade the sale of liquor without license to any Indian or negro.[998] New Hampshire, 1686, passed a similar act.[999] In the same year the common council of Albany prohibited the selling of liquor to Indian slaves without the owners’ permission.[1000] Considering still another phase of treatment, namely, that which had to do with religious instruction, it may be said that, among the early regulations of the British government for the colonies, it was required that measures be taken whereby “slaves may be best invited to the Christian faith and be made capable of being baptized therein”.[1001] In the instructions to the colonial governors the home government not infrequently gave directions for the conversion of both negroes and Indians, but the Indians referred to were free, not slave. The enslaved natives were in too great a minority to attract attention; but any effort to instruct and convert the negroes must, of course, include the former by implication.[1002] The good intentions of the home government for the conversion of slaves were commonly frustrated by the popular belief that baptism conferred freedom upon slaves. The general attitude of slave owners in all the colonies was to oppose or forbid the religious instruction and conversion of negro and Indian slaves. They argued that the instruction and conversion of slaves tended to make them disrespectful and unreliable and hence decreased their value. Consequently the religious training of slaves in the earlier colonial period depended upon the personal teaching of the owner’s family.[1003] This condition of affairs appealed strongly to the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts[1004] on their coming to America primarily to work among the Indian tribes. In the reports sent to their Society early in the eighteenth century they lamented the unenlightened condition of the slaves, and urged that they be allowed to work among them where they believed their efforts would accomplish more than among the Indian tribes. The Society granted their requests and gave them special instructions to look after the spiritual interests of all slaves.[1005] Their subsequent reports, though they dealt primarily with negro slaves, sometimes made mention of Indian slaves, and show that there was no distinction in religious matters between the slaves of the two races.