- Smith— William Steuben.
Mr
Smith was here twice: first in the morning, when I gave
him the Letter from Josiah Savil junr. and the Letter from the
Commissioner, of the general
Land Office, and requested him to ascertain if there was at the Office
any record or file of papers received from my late brother Thomas relating to a Land patent in the
name of Charles Newcomb or of
Josiah Savil— At 3. O’Clock
he came again, and said there was no trace on the records or on the
files, of any such correspondence, or of Land Patents issued in either
of those names. I received a Letter from Richard
368Richard
Pollard, dated Santiago de Chile, 26. July
1837.th. of August last—
Proof positive that my remarks upon him then were hasty—and too severe.
There was in the National Intelligencer of this morning an Advertisement
again of the Sale of a Woman and
two children, at 11. O’Clock—
I went between 11 and 12 O’Clock to the room, the woman and children,
girls of 7 and 9 years of age were there, the woman weeping and wailing
most piteously. I enquired of Dyer
if they were sold— He said no— That they had been sold last Monday, and
bought in by the husband of the
woman who was free, and a waiter at Gadsby’s—he had bought them in for 475 dollars, but was
unable to raise the money, which was the reason why they were to be sold
again— They were waiting for the man, who was endeavouring to procure by
subscription, upon his own engagement to repay the money, the means of
paying for his purchase last Monday— Mr F. S. Key the District
Attorney came in, and appeared to interest himself in favour of the man—
I learnt from Dyer, that the woman had been the Slave of a white woman who had married a man named Davis who lived at Georgetown, and was
a Clerk in the War Department— That this white woman had died, and had
before her death, promised Dorcas her freedom— That on her death bed,
she had made her husband Davis promise her that he would emancipate
Dorcas— That he did actually liberate her, but gave her no papers— That
she lived twelve or fifteen years at large—married, and had four
children— That in the meantime Davis married a second wife, and afterwards died without granting to
Dorcas her papers of freedom— That Davis’s widow, married a man by the
name of Rezin Orme, and that he sold
Dorcas and her four children, on the 22d. of August last for 700 dollars to
Birch who is an agent for the
negro Slave-traders at Alexandria— That Dorcas and her four children,
were on the same day removed to one of the Slave prisons in Alexandria—
That in the Night of that day, she killed the two youngest of her
children, one a boy four years of age, and the other a girl under twelve
months— That she attempted to kill the other two, but was prevented;
their screaming having roused some person in the house, who went into
the cell where she was confined, and took her surviving children from
her— That she was tried at Alexandria for the murder of her two children
and was acquitted by the Jury, on the ground of insanity— These were
stated as the facts, and it was said to be doubtful whether Rezin Orme,
had any right to sell them at all. Mr Key
made some enquiries about Orme, who it was said had left the District,
and was not to be found—and about Mrs Orme,
who he said was under obligations to him; but who Dyer said had shut
herself up in her chamber and would be seen by no person on the subject.
Mr
369Mr Key called me out
of the Auction room to speak in private with me on the subject; he said
he thought a subscription might be raised to enable Allen to pay for the
purchase of his wife, and children; and I told him I would give fifty
dollars towards it— I then called upon judge Cranch at his Office in the City Hall—and enquired
of him concerning the trial of this woman at Alexandria— He read to me
his Notes at the trial— There were two Indictments against her; one for
the murder of each of her children— She was tried only upon one— That of
the boy— The evidence of her killing them was complete— The defence was
insanity— Not the slightest evidence of insanity at the time, except the
mere fact of her killing the children— There was evidence of her being
subject to fits, which sometimes lasted an hour— That she is passionate,
and violent, and some times wild in her talk— The jury acquitted her as
insane— The prosecutor entered a noli prosequi upon the second
indictment— Upon being asked why she had killed her children, she said
they were in Heaven—that if they had lived she did not know what would
have become of them— That her mistress had been wrong—that her mistress
was a methodist; and so she was herself— There was no evidence before
the court, of any thing, preceding the acts for which she was tried— I
enquired of the judge concerning the case between the Causten’s, and the bank
of the Metropolis— He said Van
Ness had applied to him for an injunction which he had
refused; believing that there was no equity for Chancery interposition,
in the case— Van Ness had afterwards applied to judge Thruston, who granted the
injunction; but told judge Cranch that when he granted it, he did not
know it had been refused by him— He said that if Justices of the Peace
had no jurisdiction in pleas of debt against corporations, the
jurisdiction even for debts under 50 dollars, must remain with the
Circuit Court. The judge said he had declined conversing with Causten
upon the subject— I asked the judge his opinion upon the expediency of
abolishing imprisonment for debt in the district— He said it was
virtually abolished by the facility of obtaining a release in cases of
insolvency— I spoke of the sale of free Negroes for jail fees— He said
there was great need of a revision of the Laws respecting runaway
negroes— He gave me his copy, with marginal annotations of Mr
Alexander’s Report on Slavery in the District of Columbia
of 29. Jany. 1829. and spoke of a much
fuller report by Gershom Powers
in Feby. 1830. On leaving the judge I called
at the Office of the National Intelligencer, but Gales and Seaton were both absent— Then again at Dyer’s auction
room, but he was absent, and the Negro woman and children were gone—
Then at Mr
Force, the Mayor’s Office and he was absent— Home—walk at
the dusk of evening. Letter to J.
Meredith, Baltimore— Speech of 14. October— Shivering
cold—