ected and
esteemed. Be just in all your dealings, and strictly punctual in
the performance of all your promises; so shall you gain the
approbation and the confidence of your white neighbours, and
justify the conduct of those who have laboured for your
emancipation.

Let an especial attention be had to keep a regular record of your
marriages, and of the births of your children, by which their
ages may at any time be legally established;--this will be of
essential service to you in placing them out as apprentices and
prevent impositions being practised upon you. Finally--be sober;
be watchful over every part of your conduct, keeping constantly
in view, that the freedom of many thousands of your colour, who
still remain in slavery, will be hastened and promoted by your
leading a life of virtue and sobriety.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] American Convention Abolition Societies. Minutes, 1796, pp. 12,
14.

[2] American Convention of Abolition Societies, Minutes of, 1797, pp.
16 and 17.

[3] American Convention Abolition Societies, Minutes, 1804, pp. 30-33.

[4] Minutes of Proceedings of Tenth American Convention for promoting
the Abolition of Slavery, 1805, pp. 36-39.

[5] Minutes of the American Convention Abolition Societies, 1818.
Pages 43 and 47.

SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES

JUAN BAUTISTA CESAR

A few years ago a bookseller handed me a book of MSS. papers for
classification. I noted that they belonged to some military court or
the archives of a Spanish Audiencia having jurisdiction in New Spain.
Most of them had something to do with Texas when it was part of Mexico
and belonged to the kingdom of Spain. These papers were of the highest
historical value in so far as Texas was concerned. My curiosity was
aroused by the original transcript of a court martial called upon to
judge the transgressions of the Anglo-Americans, as they were called
in those days. From these papers Philip Nolan, around whom a halo of
false patriotism still lingers, was nothing more or less in the
judgment of the court martial than a horse thief. It was the practice
of Nolan, Bean, Fero and others to make periodical incursions across
the State and stampede home, domestic, and wild horses for their
mutual benefit. On this occasion the Spaniards were prepared for the
malefactors and when surrounded in their provisional fort they refused
at first to surrender, but the