If these were disregarded, he then
proceeded to employ counsel, by whom a petition for freedom was
filed in the proper court, and the case prosecuted to a final
determination. What excited most astonishment in these trials,
was the extraordinary success which attended him. Very few were
the cases in which he was defeated; and his failure even in
these, was more generally owing to the want of testimony, than
to the want of justice on his side. To enumerate his successes,
would be as impossible, on account of their vast number, as it
would be tedious on account of their similarity to each other.
Whole families were often liberated by a single verdict, the
fate of one relative deciding the fate of many. And often
ancestors, after passing a long life in illegal slavery, sprung
at last, like the chrysalis in autumn, into new existence,
beneath the genial rays of the sun of liberty, which shed at the
same time its benign influence upon their children, and
children's children.
"The titles of the individuals, thus liberated, to their
freedom, were variously derived.
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