He then said that I was at
liberty to speak.
The circumstances under which I left Raleigh, said I, are perfectly
familiar to you. It is known that I had no disposition to remove from this
city, but resorted to every lawful means to remain. After I found that I
could not be permitted to stay, I went away leaving behind everything I
held dear with the exception of one child, whom I took with me, after
paying two hundred and fifty dollars for her. It is also known to you and
to many other persons here present, that I had engaged to purchase my wife
and children of her master, Mr. Smith, for the sum of twenty-five hundred
dollars, and that I had paid of this sum (including my house and lot)
eleven hundred and twenty dollars, leaving a balance to be made up of
thirteen hundred and eighty dollars. I had previously to that lived in
Raleigh, a slave, the property of Mr. Sherwood Haywood, and had purchased
my freedom by paying the sum of one thousand dollars. But being driven
away, no longer permitted to live in this city, to raise the balance of
the money due on my family, my last resort was to call upon the friends of
humanity in other places, to assist me.
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