She owned other valuable
property and a great deal of money, as report said; and doubtless it is
true. She was very insolent, and, I think, drank. It seems one Tague [an
Irishman], smitten with her charms and her property, made love to her
and it was returned, and they live together as man and wife. She was the
ugliest wench I ever saw, and, if possible, he was uglier, so they were
well matched."[29] One might ascribe the tone of this description to the
tartness of Mrs. Royall's pen were it not that she recorded just afterward
that a body-servant of General Ripley who was placed at her command in St.
Francisville was "certainly the most accomplished servant I ever saw."[30]
[Footnote 27: W.C. Nell, _Colored Patriots_, pp. 244, 245.]
[Footnote 28: New Orleans _Picayune_, Dec. 23, 1893. His many charitable
bequests are scheduled in the _Picayune_ of a week later.]
[Footnote 29: Anne Royall, _Southern Tour_ (Washington, 1831), pp. 87-89.]
[Footnote 30: _Ibid_., p. 91.]
The property of colored freemen oftentimes included slaves. Such instances
were quite numerous in pre-revolutionary San Domingo; and some in
the British West Indies achieved notoriety through the exposure of
cruelties.
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