Zachariah Pritchett represents that "the parents of a certain negro lad named George who had been living as free people for near twenty years, placed their son out to service with your petitioner." He further relates that Ezekiel Anderson approached his father, Major Anderson, a justice of the peace, and "complained that your petitioner had obtained the possession of this negro lad whom the said Ezekiel claimed as his property (altho' free born and never bound to him, until lately the said Ezekiel has prevailed upon him without the knowledge or consent of his parents to bind himself before a justice of the peace).” Pritchett cites that Major Anderson issued a warrant that charged him with harbouring George and alleged that George was a runaway slave; George, whilst working in the field, was seized and delivered to said Ezekiel. The petitioner asks that Major Anderson be dismissed as a Justice of the Peace, on the grounds that he had conducted himself in a "most arbitrary" and oppressive manner and that he had knowingly subverted law and justice; moreover, Pritchett contends, "he is grossly ignorant of his office and of the powers vested in him by the law."
Result: House: read, referred to committee.
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Repository: Delaware State Archives, Dover, Delaware
