[From Clepp Asquith, one of the Trustees of the Novanglian College of Lucidity, to Mr. Richard Sharpe]
Burn Acre, Virginia
May 27th, 1775
Mr. Sharpe — sir —
I can’t scarcely credit the report that you have allowed the Negro boy to make good his escape. This word couldn’t fill us with more displeasure. What signifies your years of inquiry — and — frankly, sir — our years of investment — if the subject has slipped away through your ineptitude?
I expect regular intelligence on this. Spend what resources you will to apprehend him.
Perhaps it will be of no little interest for you to hear that Pro Bono the serving-man you sent me has fled similar. These are a wicked lot you work with. The Negro took some silver spoons and a sauce boat when he ran, and left our household in circumstances the most outrageous. We presume he has fled to Governor Dunmore. There ain’t no getting him back right now. Rumor swells daily that the Governor will proclaim the freedom of the Africans from bondage. He will involve us all in calamity and chaos without measure. The thing is intolerable. That flagitious dog Dunmore has confiscated powder and public muskets; the word being, that he does so, that Patriots shall be defenseless when he bids our own slaves rise up against us and slit our throats. The Negro-Watch have been doubled to apprehend them. We expect hourly some plot to hatch. I cannot look at the face of my Negro woodchopper without fancying that he sharpens the axe for my daughter. Have you seen my daughter for the last some years? I think not, and she is a sweet and agreeable thing with a lick of a curl over her forehead. I cannot bear any of this. The Governor’s palace is guarded by brutes — Negroes and Shawnee Indians — patrolling the grounds — frowning out at the people. I have sent to Gov. Dunmore to inquire after the boy you sent me as a gift, to see if he fled there — but Dunmore will yield no reply. He don’t care a thing for our property any more and I fear the worst kind of tyranny to come.
’Tis time to shake off the yoke of oppression. ’Tis not enough that the royal tyrants reduce us to slavery — they raise up our slaves to lord it over us.
We shall break all their backs. We shall show them chaos and rebellion. There shall be retribution. Watch and ward — reporting with regularity to —
Clepp Asquith, Esq.