“On Sunday last I was called to the prison of the Municipality in which I reside, to serve on an inquest on the body of a drowned man.  There I saw one other free man confined, by the name of Henry Tier, a yellow man, born in New York, and formerly in my employ.  He had been confined as a supposed runaway, near six months, without a particle of testimony; although from his color, the laws of Louisiana presume him to be free.  I applied immediately for his release, which was promptly granted.  At first, expenses similar to those exacted in the third Municipality were required; but on my demonstrating to the recorder that the law imposed no such burden on free men, he was released without any charge whatever.  How free men can obtain satisfaction for having been thus wrongfully imprisoned, and made to work in chains on the highway, is not for me to decide.  I apprehend no satisfaction can be had without more active friends, willing to espouse their cause, than can be found in this quarter.  Therefore I repeat, that no person of color should come here without a certificate of freedom from the governor of the state to which he belongs.

“Very respectfully, your assured friend, Jacob Barker.”

“N.B.—­Since writing the preceding, I have procured the release of another free man from the prison of the third Municipality, on the payment of $39.65, as per bill, copy herewith.  His name is William Lockman—­he was born in New Jersey, of free parents, and resides at Philadelphia.  A greater sum was required which was reduced by the allowance of his maintenance (written labor,) while at work on the road, which the law requires the Municipality to pay; but it had not before been so expounded in the third Municipality.  I hope to get it back in the case of the other three.  The allowance for labor, in addition to their maintenance, is twenty-five cents per day; but they require those illiterate men to advance the whole before they can leave the prison, and then to take a certificate for their labor, and go for it to another department—­to collect which, is ten times more trouble than the money when received is worth.  While these free men, without having committed any fault, were compelled to work in chains, on the roads, in the burning sun, for 25 cents per day, and pay in advance 18 3-4 cents per day for maintenance, doctor’s, and other bills, and not able to work half their time, I paid others, working on ship-board, in sight, two dollars per day.  J.B.”

The preceding letter of Mr. Barker, furnishes grounds for the belief, that hundreds, if not thousands of free colored persons, from the different states of this Union, both slave and free from the West Indies, South America, Mexico, and the British possessions in North America, and from other parts of the world, are reduced to slavery every year in our slave states.  If a single individual, in the course of a few days, accidentally discovered six colored free men, working in irons, and soon to be sold as slaves, in a single southern city, is it not fair to infer, that in all the slave states, there must be multitudes of such persons, now in slavery, and that this number is rapidly increasing, by ceaseless accessions?