Mr. GEORGE A. AVERY, a merchant in Rochester, New York, and an elder in the Fourth Presbyterian Church in that city, who resided four years in Virginia, gives the following testimony:
“I knew a young man who had been out hunting, and returning with some of his friends, seeing a negro man in the road, at a little distance, deliberately drew up his rifle, and shot him dead. This was done without the slightest provocation, or a word passing. This young man passed through the form of a trial, and, although it was not even pretended by his counsel that he was not guilty of the act, deliberately and wantonly perpetrated, he was acquitted. It was urged by his counsel, that he was a young man, (about 20 years of age,) had no malicious intention, his mother was a widow, &c, &c”
Mr. BENJAMIN CLENDENON, of Colerain, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, a member of the Society of Friends, gives the following testimony:
“Three years ago the coming month, I took a journey of about seventy-five miles from home, through the eastern shore of Maryland, and a small part of Delaware. Calling one day, near noon, at Georgetown Cross-Roads, I found myself surrounded in the tavern by slaveholders. Among other subjects of conversation, their human cattle came in for a share. One of the company, a middle-aged man, then living with a second wife, acknowledged, that after the death of his first wife, he lived in a state of concubinage with a female slave; but when the time drew near for the taking of a second wife, he found it expedient to remove the slave from the premises. The same person gave an account of a female slave he formerly held, who had a propensity for some one pursuit, I think the attendance of religious meetings. On a certain occasion, she presented her petition to him, asking for this indulgence; he refused—she importuned—and he, with sovereign indignation, seized a chair, and with a blow upon the head, knocked her senseless upon the floor. The same person, for some act of disobedience, on the part, I think, of the same slave, when employed in stacking straw, felled her to the earth with the handle of a pitch fork. All these transactions were related with the utmost composure, in a bar-room within thirty miles of the Pennsylvania line.”
The two following advertisements are illustrations of the regard paid to the marriage relations by slaveholding judges, governors, senators in Congress, and mayors of cities.
From the “Montgomery, (Ala.) Advertiser,” Sept. 29, 1837.
“$20 REWARD.—Ranaway from the subscriber, a negro man named Moses. He is of common size, about 28 years old. He formerly belonged to Judge Benson, of Montgomery, and it is said, has a wife in that county. John Gayle”
The John Gayle who signs this advertisement, is an Ex-Governor of Alabama.
From the “Charleston Courier,” Nov. 28.
“Ranaway from the subscriber, about twelve months since, his negro man Paulladore. His complexion is dark—about 50 years old. I understand Gen. R.Y. Hayne has purchased his wife and children from H.L. Pinckney, Esq. and has them now on his plantation, at Goose Creek, where, no doubt, the fellow is frequently lurking. Thomas Davis.”