Sixteen-year-old Thomas Morris, an apprentice carriage maker, represents that he was the owner of three slaves until recently when Jane, "the most valuable of all his slaves," died of "that malignant desease, the Small Pox." Morris maintains that his two male slaves, Paul and Beverly, who are in the possession of Richard Reins, his guardian, will "very shortly become a serious and burdensome charge" to him -- the former because of old age and the latter because he is "addicted to running away, to Drunkenness, and a habit of life and vices which bring upon him loathsome and deadly diseases," to wit "the venereal disease." Fearing that he may lose his two remaining slaves "by desease or some other accident or having them become a charge upon him," Morris prays that Richard Reins be "directed to sell the said slaves Paul and Beverly at Public or private sale for cash or on time ... the proceeds thereof to be put out at interest."
Result: Granted.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
