slaves, and selling the slaves in other colonies.

This trade formed a perfect circle. Owners of slavers carried slaves to
South Carolina, and brought home naval stores for their ship-building;
or to the West Indies, and brought home molasses; or to other colonies,
and brought home hogsheads. The molasses was made into the highly prized
New England rum, and shipped in these hogsheads to Africa for more
slaves.[8] Thus, the rum-distilling industry indicates to some extent
the activity of New England in the slave-trade. In May, 1752, one
Captain Freeman found so many slavers fitting out that, in spite of the
large importations of molasses, he could get no rum for his vessel.[9]
In Newport alone twenty-two stills were at one time running
continuously;[10] and Massachusetts annually distilled 15,000 hogsheads
of molasses into this "chief manufacture."[11]

Turning now to restrictive measures, we must first note the measures of
the slave-consuming colonies which tended to limit the trade. These
measures, however, came comparatively late, were enforced with varying
degrees of efficiency, and did not seriously affect the slave-trade
before the Revolution. The moral sentiment of New England put some check
upon the trade. Although in earlier times the most respectable people
took ventures in slave-trading voyages, yet there gradually arose a
moral sentiment which tended to make the business somewhat
disreputable.[12] In the line, however, of definite legal enactments to
stop New England citizens from carrying slaves from Africa to any place
in the world, there were, before the Revolution, none. Indeed, not until
the years 1787-1788 was slave-trading in itself an indictable offence in
any New England State.

The particular situation in each colony, and the efforts to restrict the