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Benwell, John

"An Englishman's Travels in America His Observations of Life and Manners in the Free and Slave States"

I saw this braggart on several occasions afterwards,
but he evidently kept aloof, and was disinclined to venture in the part
of the room I occupied. I ascertained that he kept a dry goods store in
King-street, and was a boisterous fellow, often involved in quarrels.
The discussion on amalgamation, which is a very vexed one, was again
introduced on a subsequent occasion; a planter from the north of the
state having (as is sometimes the case) sold off everything he
possessed, and removed to the State of Maine, taking with him a young
quadroon woman, with the intention of making her his lawful wife, and
living there retired. After the expression of a variety of opinions as
to what this man deserved, some being of opinion that the subject ought
to be mooted in the legislature at Washington--others, that his whole
effects ought to be escheated, for the benefit of the public
treasury--and by far the greater number that he ought to be summarily
dealt with at the hands of the so-considered outraged citizens, which,
in other language, meant "lynched,"--it was stated, by a very loquacious
Yankee-looking fellow present, who made himself prominent in the
discussion, that it was the opinion of the company, that any man
marrying a woman with negro blood in her veins, should be hanged, as a
traitor to southern interests and a bad citizen.


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