in number, with
their late master's benediction. In concluding his public narration in the
premises McDonogh wrote: "They have now sailed for Liberia, the land of
their fathers. I can say with truth and heartfelt satisfaction that a more
virtuous people does not exist in any country."[14]

[Footnote 11: _Daily True Delta_ (New Orleans), Dec. 19, 1857.]

[Footnote 12: Poydras _vs_. Mourrain, in _Louisiana Reports_, IX, 492. The
will is quoted in the decision.]

[Footnote 13: _Niles' Register_, LXVIII, 361. The original MS. is filed in
will book no. 6 in the New Orleans court house.]

[Footnote 14: J.T. Edwards ed., _Some Interesting Papers of John McDonogh_
(McDonoghville, Md., 1898), pp. 49-58.]

Among more romantic liberations was that of Pierre Chastang of Mobile who,
in recognition of public services in the war of 1812 and the yellow fever
epidemic of 1819 was bought and freed by popular subscription;[15] that of
Sam which was provided by a special act of the Georgia legislature in 1834
at a cost of $1,800 in reward for his having saved the state capitol from
destruction by fire;[16] and that of Prince which was attained through the
good offices of the United States government. Prince, after many years as
a Mississippi slave, wrote a letter in Arabic to the American consul at
Tangier in which he recounted his early life as a man of rank among the
Timboo people and his capture in battle and sale overseas. This led Henry
Clay on behalf of the Adams administration to inquire at what cost he
might be bought for liberation and return. His master thereupon freed him
gratuitously, and the citizens of Natchez raised a fund for the purchase of
his wife, with a surplus for a flowing Moorish costume in which Prince
was promptly arrayed. The pair then departed, in 1828, for Washington _en
route_ for Morocco, Prince avowing that he would soon send back money for
the liberation of their nine children.[17]

[Footnote 15: D.W. Mitchell, _Ten Years in the United States_ (London,
1862), p. 235.]

[Footnote 16: Georgia Senate _Journal_ for 1834, p. 25. At a later period
the Georgia legislature had occasion to reward another slave, Ransom by
name, who while hired from his master by the state had heroically saved
the Western and Atlantic Railroad bridge over the Chattahoochee River
from destruction by fire. Since official sentiment was now hostile to
manumission, it was resolved in 1849 that he be bought by the state and
ensured