[131] Captain Sprague, in his history, enters into a somewhat lengthened apology for this practice of General Worth, by saying, the negroes were the most active and vindictive of the hostile forces; that, from the peculiar situation of the country, ten negroes could keep it in a state of constant alarm; that many of them had intermarried with the Seminoles and become identified with them, had acquired their habits, and would have been useless to their owners had they been delivered to them; that the negro would have remained in service but a few days, when he would have again taken to the swamps and hommocks, when he could elude pursuit, and would have been more vindictive than before. [132] Vide opinions of the Attorney Generals, from 1838 to 1851, page 1944, Senate Doc. 55. It is a singular fact that, in the whole of this elaborate opinion, no allusion is made to the real condition of the Exiles; nor would any person suspect, from reading it, that the Attorney General had any knowledge of the claim which the Creeks preferred. Although he quotes the clause in the articles of capitulation, which expressly and emphatically declares that "Major General Jessup, in behalf of the United States, agrees that the Seminoles _and their allies, who come in and emigrate, shall be protected in their lives and property_;" yet he appears never to have conceived the idea that such a stipulation could impose any duties upon our Government in favor of negroes; nor does he attempt to define the meaning of this most explicit covenant. [133] Under this law, which is general in all slave States, free colored citizens of nearly every free State of the Union have been seized and enslaved, and are now toiling in chains. [134] Hon. R. W. Johnson, a Representative from Arkansas, spoke of this wretch as having come from Louisiana; but from manuscript letters on file in the War Department, the Author is led to think he came from Florida, and had previously participated in kidnapping Exiles in that Territory. [135] The Author, being unable to obtain a publication of the documents showing these facts, states them upon the best authority he possesses. During the discussions upon what is called the Indian Appropriation Bill for 1852, in the House of Representatives of the United States, the following colloquial debate occurred, and is now cited as a part of the evidence on which these facts are stated. It will be found in the Congressional Globe of 1852, vol. 24, part 3d, pages 1804, 1805: