They seem to be from various members of his family,--most of
them from a brother, who purports to have been a deck-hand in the
coasting and steamboat trade between Charleston and other ports; others
from female relations; one from his father, in which he inquires how long
his son has been in jail, and when the trial is to come on,--the offence,
however, of which he was accused, not being indicated. But from the
tenor of his brother's letters, it would appear that he was a small
farmer in the interior of South Carolina, sending butter, eggs, and
poultry to be sold in Charleston by his brother, and receiving the
returns in articles purchased there. This was his own account of
himself; and he affirmed, in his deposition before me, that he had never
had any purpose of shipping for Liverpool, or anywhere else; but that,
going on board the ship to bring a man's trunk ashore, he was compelled
to remain and serve as a sailor. This was a hard fate, certainly, and a
strange thing to happen in the United States at this day,--that a free
citizen should be absolutely kidnapped, carried to a foreign country,
treated with savage cruelty during the voyage, and left to die on his
arrival. Yet all this has unquestionably been done, and will probably go
unpunished.
The seed of the long-stapled cotton, now cultivated in America, was sent
there in 1786 from the Bahama Islands, by some of the royalist refugees,
who had settled there.
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