One hundred eighty-one citizens from Prince William County object to the petition "presented to your honorable body by Sundry Fishermen & Salt importers of Alexandria ... permitting the introduction of Free negroes from the north during the Spring season on the ground that labor is too high in this section & because they cannot get hands enough here to haul their 6 & 800 fathom seines." The petitioners offer five reasons for their opposition: 1) that fish have become scarce and expensive; 2) that local employment opportunities would suffer; 3) that the free people of color who would come are "miserable wretches who vegetate all Summer in the District of Columbia, Baltimore & Philadelphia, and in winter are sheltered and fed in Work Houses Jails & Poor Houses"; 4) that free blacks “owing to their filthy ... way of life are liable to all manner of contagious disorders" such as small pox; and 5) that it would not be good to have large numbers of black people in a section where the white population is thin.
Result: Reasonable.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
