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a certain additional sum, which sum was nearly paid up when Mr Patton changed his mind, rescinded the contract, and claimed Sam Norris as his slave. The case was argued with much ability; but at the close of the argument the judge decided for Mr Patton against Sam Norris, on this principle, that by the law of Kentucky, "a slave cannot make a contract, nor can he have monies of his own." The contract, therefore, was null and void; and the money, though received and expended by the master, could not be held legally to have been' paid. The report concludes with this consolatory admission, that the Hon. Judge Pryor, before whom the case was tried, "characterised it as one of great hardship and cruelty; and every one in the court-room seemed to sympathise deeply with the poor negro." In that sympathy I most truly share; but the case has besides a peculiar interest for me,—inasmuch as I find, in the slave law of Kentucky, an exact parallel of the law of England for its married women; and in this passage in the life of the poor slave Sam Norris, an exact counterpart of what has lately occurred in my own.
I, too, had a contract. My husband being desirous to raise money settled on me and my sons, to employ on his separate estate, and requiring my consent in writing before that could be done, gave me in exchange for such consent a written contract drawn up by a lawyer, and signed by that lawyer and himself. When he had obtained and employed the money he was desirous to raise, like Mr Patton of Virginia he resolved to "rescind the contract." When I, like the slave Norris, endeavoured to struggle against this gross breach of faith,—I was informed that by the law of England, "a married woman could not make a contract, or have monies of her own." When I complained of it,—I was punished by a flood of libellous accusations, published in all the English newspapers; libels for which, though proved falsehoods, I could obtain no redress, because they were published by my husband. The circumstance that Mr Norton, like Mr Patton, had obtained all the
