Page:Andrew Erwin - Gen. Jackson's Negro Speculations (1828).djvu/16

 Besides other material variations, it will be seen that the former represents the amount of the first payment at $2000, while the latter fixes it at $2050. Yet great exultation is expressed, on the presumption of the minute accuracy of the latter statement, in the idea that the sum of $929 45 is not a proportional part of $2050, and consequently could not have been your share of the first payment to Epperson. But before I proceed with any further comments on your own admission, I will lay before you and the public, a little evidence on the subject, derived from another source. A purchase of negroes is acknowledged to have been made, in 1811, by the firm of Coleman Green and Jackson. The members of this firm were, Jos. Coleman, Horace Green, and yourself. I will, in the first place, present you with the statement of your partner, Mr. Horace Green, who, you know, was in Nashville a few days since, and was seen and conversed with by a number of your warmest partizans. Why they did not procure from him an account of the transaction, will be readily seen on the perusal of the following letter:

13th July, 1828.

Sir: Your note, inquiring of me information in relation to some negroes in which Gen. Jackson was concerned, I have received. To give a correct view of the transaction, as I understood it, I must connect it with another. In the latter part of the year 1810, Capt. Joseph Coleman proposed to me to join him in the purchase of some cotton and tobacco of a Mr. Bennet Smith, to which I assented. He stated to me that Mr. Smith would require security, which he would procure. Some short time after this understanding with Capt. Coleman, he informed me that Mr. Smith would take no other security than Gen. Jackson, and that Gen. Jackson would be such, but that he must be placed in the light of a PARTNER, in order that he might have a controlling power if he thought it necessary. The cotton and tobacco were accordingly purchased, and taken by me to New-Orleans. I placed them in the hands of Gray and Taylor, then commission merchants of that place, for sale, as the property of Coleman, Green, & Jackson. The article of cotton being somewhat depressed at the time, I was advised by them to ship it round to Philadelphia. 1 left it with them, and instructed them to do so for our benefit, and returned to this place.

After my return in May, 1811, we purchased a number of negroes of Mr. Apperson, for which we were to pay a part in hand—I paid one third, and understood the balance was paid by Captain Coleman and Gen. Jackson. The negroes were taken by me to Natchez for sale, and a part of them sold. In the month of December (I think) of the same year, I received letters from Gen. Jackson, (which letters are at this time mislaid,) advising me he had purchased out Capt. Coleman in both these transactions, and offering to sell out to me at cost by securing him, or to buy me out, and refund to me the advances which I had made. I thought proper to sell.—In relation to the purchase of the negroes, although I had no understanding to the effect from either Capt. Coleman of Gen.