[for the Richmond Dispatch.]
It is said that two hundred and forty negroes have been sent from Fortress Monroe to Cuba. This is moreover, but carrying out the act of the Yankee Congress for the confiscation of the negroes belonging to Southerners. In the present bankruptcy of their Government, we see no resource they have, except to pay themselves by the capture and sale of our slaves. It may be easy for us to prove what number may have been stolen at this or that farm, or sent off and sold from this or that fort. It is not so easy, however, to identify what particular negroes were stolen by what particular Yankee. In enforcing reparation for our stolen property, the evidence as to the above most important points may be difficult to obtain — It is feared almost impossible. It seems that enactments might be so framed as to allow our negroes to bear witness in the cases above referred to. Laws for admitting their evidence might be so guarded as to be in no way prejudicial to us, while our property would be so much better protected. We should have no compunction as to enabling Old Virginia negroes to tell what they know about Yankee thieves who have desolated our borders, and to whom our negroes are far superior, morally. Northerners should have no reason to complain of our negroes appearing against them, when they have admitted the evidence of Yankee free negroes against our Virginia citizens, when endeavoring to secure the property secured to us by our former Constitution. R.
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