Mr Bozal
Stulers was Clarke when I was thear last and Sir a most any man can City
that I Charles Covey is lawfuley a free man ... But at the same time I do
not want you to say any thing about this to any one that may acquaint my
Preseant mastear of these things as he would quickly sell me and there
fore I do not want this known and the men that came after me Carried me to
Mempears tenessee and after whiping me untill my Back was Raw from my rump
to the Back of my neck sent me to this Place and sold me Pleas to ancer
this as soon as you Can and Sir as soon as I can Get my time Back I will
pay you all charges if you will Except of it yours in beast Charles Covey
Borned and Raized in the City of Milledgeville and a Blacksmith by trade
and James Rethearfurd in the City of Macon is my Laller [lawyer?] and can
tell you all about these things."[60]

[Footnote 60: Letter of Charles Covey to Howell Cobb, Nov. 30, 1853. MS. in
the possession of Mrs. A.S. Erwin, Athens, Ga., for the use of which I am
indebted to Professor R.P. Brooks of the University of Georgia. For
another instance in which Cobb's aid was asked see the American Historical
Association _Report_ for 1911, II, 331-334.]

In a few cases claims of ownership were resurrected after a long lapse.
That of Alexander Pierre, a New Orleans negro who had always passed as
free-born, was the consequence of an affray in which he had worsted another
black. In revenge the defeated combatant made the fact known that Pierre
was the son of a blind girl who because of her lack of market value had
been left by her master many years before to shift for herself when he had
sold his other slaves and gone to France. Thereupon George Heno, the heir
of the departed and now deceased proprietor, laid claim to the whole Pierre
group, comprising the blind mother, Alexander himself, his sister, and
that sister's two children. Whether Heno's proceedings at law to procure
possession succeeded or failed is not told in the available record.[61] In
a kindred case not long afterward, however, the cause of liberty triumphed.
About 1807 Simon Porche of Point Coupee Parish had permitted his slave
Eulalie to marry his wife's illegitimate mulatto half-brother; and
thereafter she and her children and grand-children dwelt in virtual
freedom. After Porche's death his widow, failing in an attempt to get
official sanction for the manumission of Eulalie and her offspring and
desiring the effort to be renewed in