Fifty "Inhabitants of the County of Mathews" ask that the fifth and sixth sections of "an Act passed on the 10th day January 1814 entitled an Act to perpetuate evidence of the desertion of Slaves to the Enemy and for other purposes" be repealed. The petitioners assert that said sections empower "Colonels, Commandants, Majors and Captains of the Militia, of this Commonwealth" to "remove and Secure as far as in their power practicable out of the reach of any Slave or Slaves, any boat or Vessails, which from their information and in their Opinion may be usefull to any Slave, or Slaves, in deserting to the Enemy." They complain that by said law "they have been deprived of their Canoes, which were a mean of the greater part of their support."
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
