"Oh, I see you have been swallowing the usual dose that is poured down
Southern throats by those Northern negro-haters, who seem to think it a
duty they owe the South to tell all manner of infamous lies upon us free
coloured people. I really get so indignant and provoked sometimes, that I
scarcely know what to do with myself. Badly off, and in want, indeed! Why,
my dear sir, we not only support our own poor, but assist the whites to
support theirs, and enemies are continually filling the public ear with the
most distressing tales of our destitution! Only the other day the
Colonization Society had the assurance to present a petition to the
legislature of this State, asking for an appropriation to assist them in
sending us all to Africa, that we might no longer remain a burthen upon the
State--and they came very near getting it, too; had it not been for the
timely assistance of young Denbigh, the son of Judge Denbigh, they would
have succeeded, such was the gross ignorance that prevailed respecting our
real condition, amongst the members of the legislature. He moved a
postponement of the vote until he could have time to bring forward facts to
support the ground that he had assumed in opposition to the appropriation
being made. It was granted; and, in a speech that does him honour, he
brought forward facts that proved us to be in a much superior condition to
that in which our imaginative enemies had described us. Ay! he did more--he
proved us to be in advance of the whites in wealth and general
intelligence: for whilst it was one in fifteen amongst the whites unable to
read and write, it was but one in eighteen amongst the coloured (I won't
pretend to be correct about the figures, but that was about the relative
proportions); and also, that we paid, in the shape of taxes upon our real
estate, more than our proportion for the support of paupers, insane,
convicts, &c."

"Well," said the astonished Winston, "that is turning the tables