Plaintiff said she did not know how old she was; believed she was sixteen; she looked nearer twenty-six; she lived with Hons Schoonmaker; was brought up in the family. She told her case as pathetically as possible:—
“Massa ’Squire,” said she, “I was gone up to massa Schoonmaker’s lot, on Shaungum mountain, to pile brush; den Cuff, he vat stands dare, cum by vid de teem, he top his horses and say, ‘How de do, Phillis?’ or, as she gave it, probably in Dutch, ‘How gaud it mit you’ ‘Hail goot,’ said I; den massa he look at me berry hard, and say, Phillis, pose you meet me in the nite, ven de moon is up, near de barn, I got sumting to say—den I say, berry bell, Cuff, I vill—he vent up de mountain, and I vent home; ven I eat my supper and milk de cows, I say to myself, Phillis, pose you go down to de barn, and hear vat Cuff has to say. Well, massa ’Squire, I go, dare was Cuff sure enough, he told heaps of tings all about love; call’d me Wenus and Jewpeter, and other tings vat he got out of de playhouse ven he vent down in the slope to New York, and he ax’d me if I’d marry him before de Dominie, Osterhaut, he vat preached in Milton, down ’pon Marlbro’. I say, Cuff, you make fun on me; he say no, ‘By mine zeal, I vil marry you, Phillis;’ den he gib me dis here as earnest.”—Phillis here drew from her huge pocket an immense pair of scissars, a jack knife, and a wooden pipe curiously carved, which she offered as a testimony of the promise, and which was sworn to as the property of Cuff, who subsequently had refused to fulfil the contract.
Cuff admitted that he had made her a kind of promise, but it was conditional. “I told her, massa ’Squire, that she was a slave and a nigger, and she must wait till the year 27, then all would be free, cording to the new constitution; den she said, berry vell, I bill wait.”
Phillis utterly denied the period of probation; it was, she said, to take place “ben he got de new corduroy breeches from Cripplely Coon, de tailor; he owe three and sixpence, and massa Coon won’t let him hab ’em vidout de money: den Cuff he run away to Varsing; I send Coon Crook, de constable, and he find um at Shaudakin, and he bring him before you, massa.”
The testimony here closed.
The court charged the jury, that although the testimony was not conclusive, nor the injury very apparent, yet the court was not warranted in taking the case out of the hands of the jury. A promise had evidently been made, and had been broken; some differences existed as to the period when the matrimonial contract was to have been fulfilled, and it was equally true and honourable, as the court observed, that in 1827 slavery was to cease in the state, and that fact might have warranted the defendant in the postponement; but of this there was no positive proof, and as the parties could neither read nor write, the presents might be construed into a marriage promise. The court could see no reason why these humble Africans should not, in imitation of their betters, in such cases, appeal to a jury for damages; but it was advisable not to make those damages more enormous than circumstances warranted, yet sufficient to act as a lesson to those coloured gentry, in their attempts to imitate fashionable infidelity.
The jury brought in a verdict of “Ten dollars, and costs, for the plaintiff.”
The defendant not being able to pay, was committed to Kingston jail, a martyr to his own folly, and an example to all others in like cases offending.