The first of the following advertisements was a standing one, in the “Vicksburg Register,” from Dec. 1835 till Aug. 1836.  The second advertises the same FREE man for sale.

“SHERIFF’S SALE” “COMMITTED, to the jail of Warren county, as a Runaway, on the 23d inst. a Negro man, who calls himself John J. Robinson; says that he is free, says that he kept a baker’s shop in Columbus, Miss. and that he peddled through the Chickasaw nation to Pontotoc, and came to Memphis, where he sold his horse, took water, and came to this place.  The owner of said boy is requested to come forward, prove property, pay charges, and take him away, or he will be dealt with as the law directs.

WM. EVERETT, Jailer. 
Dec. 24, 1835”

“NOTICE is hereby given, that the above described boy, who calls himself John J. Robinson, having been confined in the Jail of Warren county as a Runaway, for six months—­and having been regularly advertised during this period, I shall proceed to sell said Negro boy at public auction, to the highest bidder for cash, at the door of the Court House in Vicksburg, on Monday, 1st day of August, 1836, in pursuance of the statute in such cases made and provided.

E. W. MORRIS, Sheriff.
Vicksburg, July 2, 1836.”

See “Newborn (N.C.) Spectator,” of Jan. 5, 1838, for the following advertisement.

“RANAWAY, from the subscriber a negro man known as Frank Pilot.  He is five feet eight inches high, dark complexion, and about 50 years old, HAS BEEN FREE SINCE 1829—­is now my property, as heir at law of his last owner, Samuel Ralston, dec.  I will give the above reward if he is taken and confined in any jail so that I can get him.

SAMUEL RALSTON.  Pactolus, Pitt County.”

From the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) “Flag of the Union,” June 7.

“COMMITTED to the jail of Tuscaloosa county, a negro man, who says his name is Robert Winfield, and says he is free.

R.W.  BARBER, Jailer.”

That “public opinion,” in the slave states affords no protection to the liberty of colored persons, even after those persons become legally free, by the operation of their own laws, is declared by Governor Comegys, of Delaware, in his recent address to the Legislature of that state, Jan. 1839.  The Governor, commenting upon the law of the state which provides that persons convicted of certain crimes shall be sold as servants for a limited time, says,

“The case is widely different with the negro(!) Although ordered to be disposed of as a servant for a term of years, perpetual slavery in the south is his inevitable doom; unless, peradventure, age or disease may have rendered him worthless, or some resident of the State, from motives of benevolence, will pay for him three or four times his intrinsic value.  It matters not for how short a time he is ordered to be sold, so that he can be carried