orgia, in 1839.[15]

[Footnote 9: _Virginia Gazette_ (Richmond), Nov. 20, 1798.]

[Footnote 10: Winchester, Va., _Gazette_, Jan. 30, 1799.]

[Footnote 11: The _Palladium_ (Frankfort, Ky.), Dec. 1, 1808.]

[Footnote 12: Augusta, Ga., _Chronicle_, Aug. 1, 1818.]

[Footnote 13: Charleston _City Gazette_, Feb. 22, 1825.]

[Footnote 14: _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), Mch. 18, 1836,
reprinted in _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 356.]

[Footnote 15: J.S. Buckingham, _The Slave States of America_ (London,
[1842]), II, 112.]

In some cases the lessor of slaves procured an obligation of complete
insurance from the lessee. An instance of this was a contract between
James Murray of Wilmington in 1743, when he was departing for a sojourn in
Scotland, and his neighbor James Hazel. The latter was to take the three
negroes Glasgow, Kelso and Berwick for three years at an annual hire of L21
sterling for the lot. If death or flight among them should prevent Hazel
from returning any of the slaves at the end of the term he was to reimburse
Murray at full value scheduled in the lease, receiving in turn a bill of
sale for any runaway. Furthermore if any of the slaves were permanently
injured by willful abuse at the hands of Hazel's overseer, Murray was to be
paid for the damage.[16] Leases of this type, however, were exceptional.
As a rule the owners appear to have carried all risks except in regard to
willful injury, and the courts generally so adjudged it where the contracts
of hire had no stipulations in the premises.[17] When the Georgia supreme
court awarded the owner a full year's hire of a slave who had died in the
midst of his term the decision was complained of as an innovation "signally
oppressive to the poorer classes of our citizens--the large majority--who
are compelled to hire servants."[18]

[Footnote 16: Nina M. Tiffany ed., _Letters of James Murray, Loyalist_
(Boston, 1901), pp. 67-69.]

[Footnote 17: J.D. Wheeler, _The Law of Slavery_ (New York, 1837), pp.
152-155.]

[Footnote 18: Editorial in the _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), Dec.
12, 1854.]

The main supply of slaves for hire was probably comprised of the husbands
and sons, and sometimes the daughters, of the cooks and housemaids of the
merchants, lawyers and the like whose need of servants was limited but who
in many cases made a point of owning their slaves in families. On the other
hand, many townsmen whose capital was scant or whose need was