“I beg leave to inform your honor, and you, gentlemen of the jury, that my daughter, whose name is joined with mine in this prosecution, is at present in the city of New York, and was there at the time the summons was issued and served upon me: but, if she were in Norfolk at this time, I do not know that you have any business whatever with her. She is under age, and has been brought up in strict obedience to me in all things. I am alone responsible for any act of hers, as well as for my own. I am here to answer to any charge that may be brought against me. I have been notified to present myself this day before this court to answer to the charge of having been engaged in teaching colored children to read and to write, and I am informed that in so doing I have been acting against the _peace_ and _dignity_ of the Commonwealth. This charge, gentlemen, I do not like, but we shall see who it is that destroys our _peace_ and insults our _dignity_.” The Prosecuting Attorney here touched me on the arm, thinking that I was about to discuss the merits of the case before the testimony was closed. This somewhat disconcerted me, but I took my seat and soon regained my calmness, and proceeded to call my witnesses. I had but three, Mr. Walter Taylor, Mr. Sharp, a lawyer, and Mr. John Williams, also a lawyer and the Clerk of the Court in which I was being tried. All these gentlemen were members of Christ’s Church, and, together with their wives and daughters, were teachers and instructors of negroes in the Sunday-school held habitually in the lecture room of that Church. Mr. Williams had penned with his own hands the summons that had brought me then before the court, while his own daughter, Miss Eliza Williams was then teaching in that Sunday-school the same children that were in our school, and from the same books that they used with us. Among others who were also engaged in teaching in that Sunday-school, and from the same books that we used, I may mention Mrs. Dixon, Mrs. Southgate, Mrs. Pinkum, Miss Martha Taylor, Miss Jane Watson, Miss Henrietta Hunter, the Hon. Tazewell Taylor, and even some members of the family of Judge Baker who presided on the Bench at my trial, and finally fixed and passed my sentence. In giving the names of these persons, I am not actuated by any malicious feelings towards them, for I most heartily approve of all that they have done in the matter of instructing the colored people of Norfolk, but I do it merely to show the injustice to which I was subjected, while these individuals, representing the aristocracy of that town, and who had done all, and more than I had done, and because they were such aristocracy, were not only allowed to escape the punishment attached to the offence of which we were equally guilty, but also to aid in the prosecution against me, and even sit in judgment upon me. The deductions from these simple facts are so clear and simple that I need not direct the attention of my readers to them more particularly.