Petition of Jane for Compensation

 

       To the Honorable the Senate of the State of South Carolina  
       The humble Petition of Jane Thompson of the City of Charleston__________

Sheweth that your petition was lately the owner of a Slave named Pharaoh on whose labour she depended for Subsistence that the said slave was reared by your petitioner and was to her of great value in as much as he supported the wants of great age and infirmity and has always demeaned himself in the most orderly submissive and inoffensive manner.  That he was accused before a court of Magistrates and Freeholders of having been concerned in the late attempt to excite insurrection in the city of Charleston and was convicted on  the testimony chiefly of two convicts  and felons and has been executed.   Your petition would humbly submit that she does not mean to impose the motives of the Gentlemen who composed the tribunal or to [judge] (?) the justice or humanity of their sentence on the contrary she is willing as for as policy to resign herself to what the justice and the law required and to submit patiently to a calamity that has exposed to want and suffering in [her] extreme old age.  But from the humanity of the legislation of her native State she presume to hope for some relief and would most humbly present that as her all has been taken to sustain the public interest and secure the public tranquility the justice and propriety of thus participating is obvious and probable it is the disturbing consequences of this execution that has her a supplanted to your honorable body to whom she appeals confidently believing that prayer of the widow and sufferer will be heard and accepted.  Your petition would further humbly represent to this Honorable house that she has every reason to believe and does verily believe that that the said slave Pharaoh was the victim of a wicked combination among his accusers and that if he even intended at all into the scheme of the conspirators  it was done at the express suggestion of the person under whose control he was and Lauded intention to expose their machination.  But having expected him their suspicious was accused by Perault the slave of  Mr. Slackerford whom he has previously accused before the intendant Wardens—all which will now fully appear by refuted to the affidants accompanying this petition—But whether he was Guilty or Innocent she has been deprived of her support.  She appears to the public trust-and humbly prays that such which be granted to her as to your Honorable house shall seem proper and your petition as in duty_________________.

                                                                                             Jane Thompson

Charleston 22 Nov. 1822
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