indented by Ragg and his owners to go on board of his said ship to America, and the deponent not inclining to be concerned in that _servant trade_, proposed to Ragg to hold a share of the ship if he was to have no concern of that adventure of the servants, as he was an utter stranger _to any merchandise or trade in that way_; to which Robert Ragg said, that he could not have any concern with the ship without having a concern in the servants, which made him break up any farther communing with Ragg about the matter." But this witness was an instance of the instability of good resolutions: he was strongly pressed by friends for whom he had a high esteem; the profits and advantages of the undertaking--but that, of course, was a secondary matter--were largely spoken of in support of these importunities, "to hold a share in the same way as the other owners had done, as well in the adventure of the servants as in the ship,--to which importunities the deponent at last yielded." Not less tell-tale is a letter by the captain of the vessel, written in a spirit of honest indignation to one of the parties involved in the legal proceedings. "Dear Sir,--I am favoured with yours of the 28th September, and am sorry you are put to trouble about one Williamson. I do not remember any of that name that went out in the Planter, and am certain, if he is not mentioned in _the account of what was got for the servants' indentures_," [that is to say, of course, for the sale of the 'servants' themselves,] "if even he was ever indented, he must have run away at Aberdeen, or at Cape May, where the ship was lost: and I am sure there was no servant in that ship but what was legally attested before they went from Aberdeen. I cannot tell _if any register is kept at Philadelphia of the sale of servants_, but I imagine not."