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Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail by Daniel Drayton
page 69 of 110 (62%)
seventy-four negroes! Why say he took them for gain, if
he did not steal them? Why say he knew he should end his
days in a penitentiary? Why say if he got off with the
negroes he should have realized an independent fortune?
Did he not know they were slaves? He chartered the
vessel to carry off negroes; and, if they were free
negroes, or he supposed them to be, how was he to
realize an independent fortune? He was afraid of the
excitement at Washington. Why so, if the negroes were
not slaves? There was the fact of their being under the
hatches, concealed in the hold of the vessel,--did not
that prove he meant to steal them? Add to that the other
fact of his leaving at night. He comes here with a
miserable load of wood; gives it away; sells it for a
note; did not care about the wood, wanted only to get it
out; had a longing for a cargo of negroes. The wood was
a blind; besides he lied about it;--would he have ever
come back to collect his note? But the prisoner's
counsel says the slaves might have heard Mr. Foote's
torch-light oration, and so have been persuaded to go. A
likely story! They all started off, I suppose, ran
straight down to the vessel and got into the hold!
Seventy-four negroes all together! But was not the
vessel chartered in Philadelphia to carry off negroes?
This shows the excessive weakness of the defence. And
how did the slaves behave after they were captured? If
they had been running away, would they not have been
downcast and disheartened? Would not they have said, Now
we are taken? On the other hand, according to the
testimony of Major Williams, on their way back they were
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