such as these they swear, and to them they pray. Can your Honour, then,
give credit to such evidence, when there is no doubt that it was agreed
between the witnesses to swear that the negroes were free? This they
might easily do, for there is no question but they told him so; and to
swear it was but a trifle, when absolution can be got so cheap. It does
not stand to reason, that slaves, who are in hopes of getting their
freedom, would acknowledge themselves to be slaves. Do not their
complexion and features tell all the world that they are the blood of
negroes, and have sucked slavery & cruelty from their infancy? Can any
one think, when we call to mind that barbarous action[B] committed
on his Majesty's brave subjects at the retaking of the fort at S't
Augustine, which was occasioned by the treachery of their vile General,
when he sacrificed them to that barbarous colour, that it was done by
any who had the least drop of blood either of liberty or Christianity
in them? No, I am confident your Honour can't think so; no, not even of
their Gov'r, under whose vile commission this was suffered to be done,
and went unpunished. It was headed by this Francisco, that cursed seed
of Cain, cursed from the foundation of the world, who has the impudence
to come into Court and plead that he is free. Slavery is too good for
such a savage; nay, all the cruelty invented by man will never make
amends for so vile a proceeding; and if I may be allowed to speak
freely, with submission, the torments of the world to come will not
suffice. God forgive me, if I judge unjustly! What a miserable state
must that man be in, who is under the jurisdiction of that vile & cruel
colour! I pity my poor fellow creatures who may have been made prisoners
in this war, and especially some that were lately sent to the Havanah,
and all by the treachery of that vile fellow, John Evergin, who says he
is possessed with the spirit of the inward man, but was possessed with
the spirit of Beelzebub, when he piloted the cursed Spaniards over the
bar of Obricock, as it has been proved in Court.