to her returning here in the way she seems to wish.  It would be to reward the worst species of ingratitude, and subject myself to insult whenever she came in my way.  Her moral character is very bad, as the police records will shew; and she would be a very troublesome character should she come here without any restraint.  She is not a native of this country, and I know of no relation she has here.  I induced her to take a husband, a short time before she left this, by providing a comfortable house in my yard for them, and prohibiting her going out after 10 to 12 o’clock (our bed-time) without special leave.  This she considered the greatest, and indeed the only, grievance she ever complained of, and all my efforts could not prevent it.  In hopes of inducing her to be steady to her husband, who was a free man, I gave him the house to occupy during our absence; but it appears the attachment was too loose to bind her, and he has taken another wife:  so on that score I do her no injury.—­In England she made her election, and quitted my family.  This I had no right to object to; and I should have thought no more of it, but not satisfied to leave quietly, she gave every trouble and annoyance in her power, and endeavoured to injure the character of my family by the most vile and infamous falsehoods, which was embodied in a petition to the House of Commons, and would have been presented, had not my friends from this island, particularly the Hon. Mr. Byam and Dr. Coull, come forward, and disproved what she had asserted.

“It would be beyond the limits of an ordinary letter to detail her baseness, though I will do so should his Excellency wish it; but you may judge of her depravity by one circumstance, which came out before Mr. Justice Dyett, in a quarrel with another female.

* * * * *

     “Such a thing I could not have believed possible.[19]

[Footnote 19:  I omit the circumstance here mentioned, because it is too indecent to appear in a publication likely to be perused by females.  It is, in all probability, a vile calumny; but even if it were perfectly true, it would not serve Mr. Wood’s case one straw.—­Any reader who wishes it, may see the passage referred to, in the autograph letter in my possession.  T. P.]

“Losing her value as a slave in a pecuniary point of view I consider of no consequence; for it was our intention, had she conducted herself properly and returned with us, to have given her freedom.  She has taken her freedom; and all I wish is, that she would enjoy it without meddling with me.

“Let me again repeat, if his Excellency wishes it, it will afford me great pleasure to state such particulars of her, and which will be incontestably proved by numbers here, that I am sure will acquit me in his opinion of acting unkind or ungenerous towards her.  I’ll say nothing of the liability I should incur, under the Consolidated Slave Law, of dealing with a free person as a slave.

     “My only excuse for entering so much into detail must be
     that of my anxious wish to stand justified in his
     Excellency’s opinion.