Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/48



As it has been repeatedly suggested to the Publisher, by persons who have seen the Manuscript, that numbers would be ready to suspect they were not really the writings of Phillis, he has procured the following Attestation, from the most respectable characters in Boston, that none might have the least ground for disputing their original:

We, whose names are under-written, do assure the World, that the Poems specified in the following page were (as we verily believe) written by Phillis, a young Negro girl, who was but a few years since brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is, under the disadvantage of serving as a slave in a family in this Town. She has been examined by some of the best judges, and is thought qualified to write them.

N.B. The original Attestation, signed by the above Gentlemen, may be seen by applying to Archibald Bell, Bookseller, No. 8, Aldgate Street.