that there were sometimes from three to four hundred persons
crowded, we saw about fifty slaves. Amongst the number thus
incarcerated was a woman with nine children, who had been
cruelly separated from their husband and father, and would
probably be shortly sent to New Orleans, where they would never
be likely to see him again, and where the mother may be for ever
severed from every one of her children, and each of them sold to
a separate master. From thence we went to the Alexandria city
jail, where we saw a young man who was admitted to be free even
by the jailer himself. He had been seized and committed in the
hope that he might prove a slave, and that the party detaining
him would receive a reward. He had been kept there nearly twelve
months because he could not pay the jail fees, and instead of
obtaining any redress for false imprisonment, was about to be
sold into slavery for a term to reimburse these fees.

"The next morning I was desirous of handing to the President the
memorial, of which the following is a copy:


"'_Address to the President of the United States, from
the Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society_.

"'SIR,--As the head of a great Confederacy of States,
justly valuing their free constitution and political
organization, and tenacious of their rights and their
character, the Committee of the British and Foreign
Anti-slavery Society, through their esteemed coadjutor
and representative, Joseph Sturge, would respectfully