"Having no vote or Influence in the Election of those that Tax us yet many of our Colour (as is well known) have Cherfully Entered the field of Battle in the defense of the Common Cause and that (as we conceive) against a similar Exertion of Power (in Regard to taxation) too well known to need a Recital in this place," voicing this sentiment, John and Paul Cuffe and others sent a petition for relief to the General Court, Massachusetts Bay, February 10, 1780. Such requests, however, were not new. At the beginning of the American Revolution there were probably about 7,000 Negroes, slave and free, in Massachusetts. About 1,500 lived in Boston. A petition, signed by Prince Hall and others, praying for the abolition of slavery, was presented to the General Court of Massachusetts Bay in 1777. Another petition dated February 18, 1780, embodies a pathetic and earnest appeal for relief from taxation. It is preserved in the manuscript collection of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is signed by John and Paul Cuffe and five others.[10] A copy is with the Cuffe papers. There are two other copies among these papers, both shorter in form, and dated January 22, 1781. On one of the duplicate petitions in the Cuffe papers there is a notation signed by John Cuffe. "This is the copy," it records, "of the petition which we did deliver unto the honorable Council and House for relief from Taxation in the days of our distress. But we received none." The petition recites that they were in poor circumstances. When slaves they were deprived of the profits of their labor and of the benefits of inheritance. So distressed were they at this time that only five or six owned a cow. They could not meet the taxes assessed against them. They were aggrieved because they had no vote either in local or colonial affairs and nobody had ever heard of one of their number sitting in the Court of the General Assembly. The petitioners most humbly requested the Massachusetts General Court to grant them relief from taxation. Interest in the Cuffe brothers is now transferred from the State capitol to Bristol County,[11] where these men were indefatigable in their efforts to obtain relief. Late in 1780 a petition was made "To the Honble the Justices of the Court of General Sessions of the peace begun and held at Taunton within and for the County of Bristol." The petitioners ask relief from taxation on the grounds that they are "Indian men and by law not the subjects of Taxation for any Estate Real or personal and Humbly Pray your Honors that as they are assessed jointly a Double Poll Tax and the said Paul is a minor for whom the Said John is not by law answerable or chargeable that the said Poll Taxes aforesaid and also all and regular Taxes aforesaid on their and Each of their Real and personal Estate aforesaid, may be abated to them and they allowed their Reasonable Costs."