Page:Andrew Erwin - Gen. Jackson's Negro Speculations (1828).djvu/18

 pidation, and release the bank officers from all obligations of secrecy, so that we may have a full view of this transaction, as well as of some others perhaps of a similar kind. It has been said, indeed, that the $929 45, spoken of in the memorandum, as paid by you to Epperson, might have been the expenses attending the attempt to sell the negroes, ascertained and refunded by you after they were brought back. Miserable subterfuge! That amount, Sir, you know full well, was paid by you to Epperson, three days after the alleged date of the contract for the purchase of the negroes, and the above memorandum conclusively shows, that Coleman was to pay a sum almost precisely equal. By adding together the three sums $613 39, 191 33, and 125, we have the amount of $929 72, which is 27 cents more than the sum paid by yourself. Green likewise paid a similar amount, and he tells us distinctly that he paid one third, and that the balance, as he understood, was paid by Capt. Coleman, and Gen. Jackson.

It is possible indeed that the aggregate sum thus advanced, may have paid not only the first instalment to Epperson, but also sundry expenses attending the transportation, such as the purchase of a boat, provisions, &c.; and this is the more probable, as it is stated in the memorandum, that $125 of the amount, paid by Coleman, was for a boat. Bat it is unnecessary for me to puzzle myself about the details of these transactions: it is enough that you are conclusively established as a negro trader, not as security, for that idea is perfectly ridiculous, but as a partner in the transaction.

You were solicited to be a security for Coleman and Green, in the purchase of cotton and tobacco, but would not, on account of the magnitude of the risk, consent to lend your capital and credit unless admitted as a partner; and Mr. Green, one of your firm, says that although nothing special was said about the relation yon were to occupy in the negro speculation, he considered you as standing "in the same situation as in the purchase of the cotton and tobacco," for the very obvious reason, that your credit enabled the firm to make the purchase; and he might have added the still mare conclusive circumstances, that you signed the contract as a partner, and actually paid down tn cash one third part of the amount, required in advance. It is perfectly ridiculous, indeed, for you to expect to escape the odium of this transaction by representing yourself as a security and not a principal. You paid your money, risked your credit, signed your name to a contract, drew bills, gave notes, wrote checks, and afterwards purchased out the interest of your partners, became yourself sole owner, went to the lower country, and finding yourself unable to sell them to advantage, you brought part of the objects of your speculation back with you, passed the Choctaw agency in triumph, and afterwards, no doubt, disposed of them in some other way, as you admit you sold the greater part of them. Is it not then a pitiful story to say you were not a voluntary agent in those transactions? You were a security forsooth; and how do you attempt to prove a thing so improbable and absurd? Not by your friend, who was himself concerned in the transaction. He says you refused to be a mere security, and insisted on being a partner!!—that your credit enabled