“A Methodist preacher, Wm. Whitby by name, who married in Bucksville, S.C., and by marriage came into possession of some slaves, in July, 1838, was about moving to another station to preach, and wished, also, to move his family and slaves to Tennessee, much against the will of the slaves, one of which, to get clear from him, ran into the woods after swimming a brook.  The parson took after him with his gun, which, however, got wet and missed fire, when he ran to a neighbor for another gun, with the intention, as he said, of killing him:  he did not, however, catch or kill him; he chained another for fear of his running away also.  The above particulars were related to me by William Whitby himself.  THOMAS C. PERRY.  March 3, 1839.”

“I find by examining the minutes of the S.C.  Conference, that there is such a preacher in the Conference, and brother Perry further stated to me that he was well acquainted with him, and if this statement was published, and if it could be known where he was since the last Conference, he wished a paper to be sent him containing the whole affair.  He also stated to me, verbally, that the young man he attempted to shoot was about nineteen years of age, and had been shut up in a corn-house, and in the attempt of Mr. Whitby to chain him, he broke down the door and made his escape as above mentioned, and that Mr. W. was under the necessity of hiring him out for one year, with the risk of his employer’s getting him.  Brother Perry conversed with one of the slaves, who was so old that he thought it not profitable to remove so far, and had been sold; he informed him of all the above circumstances, and said, with tears, that he thought he had been so faithful as to be entitled to liberty, but instead of making him free, he had sold him to another master, besides parting one husband and wife from those ties rendered a thousand times dearer by an infant child which was torn for ever from the husband.

WILLIAM BARDWELL.
Sandwich, Mass., March 4, 1839.”

Mr. WILLIAM POE, till recently a slaveholder in Virginia, now an elder in the Presbyterian Church at Delhi, Ohio, gives the following testimony:—­

“An elder in the Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg had a most faithful servant, whom he flogged severely and sent him to prison, and had him confined as a felon a number of days, for being saucy.  Another elder of the same church, an auctioneer, habitually sold slaves at his stand—­very frequently parted families—­would often go into the country to sell slaves on execution and otherwise; when remonstrated with, he justified himself, saying, ‘it was his business;’ the church also justified him on the same ground.

“A Doctor Duval, of Lynchburg, Va. got offended with a very faithful, worthy servant, and immediately sold him to a negro trader, to be taken to New Orleans; Duval still keeping the wife of the man as his slave.  This Duval was a professor of religion.”