"Pasquotank County, September Court, &c. &c. 1777.
"Present, the Worshipful Thomas Boyd, Timothy Hickson, John Paelin, Edmund Clancey, Joseph Reading, and Thomas Rees, Esqrs. Justices.
"It was then and there ordered, that Thomas Reading, Esq. take the FREE negroes taken up under an act to prevent domestic insurrections and other purposes, and expose the same to the best bidder, at public vendue, for ready money, and be accountable for the same, agreeable to the aforesaid act; and make return to this or the next succeeding court of his proceedings.
"A copy. ENOCH REESE, C.C."
THE PROTECTION OF "PUBLIC OPINION" TO DOMESTICS TIES.
The barbarous indifference with which slaveholders regard the forcible sundering of husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, and the unfeeling brutality indicated by the language in which they describe the efforts made by the slaves, in their yearnings after those from whom they have been torn away, reveals a 'public opinion' towards them as dead to their agony as if they were cattle. It is well nigh impossible to open a southern paper without finding evidence of this. Though the truth of this assertion can hardly be called in question, we subjoin a few illustrations, and could easily give hundreds.
From the "Savannah Georgian," Jan. 17, 1839. "$100 reward will be given for my two fellows, Abram and Frank. Abram has a wife at Colonel Stewart's, in Liberty county, and a sister in Savannah, at Capt. Grovenstine's. Frank has a wife at Mr. Le Cont's, Liberty county; a mother at Thunderbolt, and a sister in Savannah.
WM. ROBARTS. Wallhourville, 5th Jan. 1839"
From the "Lexington (Ky.) Intelligencer." July 7, 1838.
"$160 Reward.—Ranaway from the subscribers living in this city, on Saturday 16th inst. a negro man, named Dick, about 37 years of age. It is highly probable said boy will make for New Orleans as he has a wife living in that city, and he has been heard to say frequently that he was determined to go to New Orleans.