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Littleton Halifax Co No Ca
November 28th 1867

Sir

I enclose you the petition of Washington Bobbett a Freedman & client drawn up at his request and for the accuracy of the merit of the proceedings before the  court I vouch myself. There were four Justices of the Peace presiding and one only of whom is personally known to me even by name. The Chairman the only one known to me and who was one of the three opposed to granting the motion, is a gentleman for whom I entertain sentiments of respect & esteem.

I have been induced to aid my client with my professional services in this application to you from a profound sense of the importance at this crisis, that the inferior courts of the state should observe with peculiar care, the Rules prescribed by the Supreme Court of the State & the Military Tribunals for their goverment in matters relating to binding out the children of Freedmen, a subject on which they are peculiarly interested & excited.

For an error of the Court in its judgement of law I will now counsel or aid a client in appealing from the civil to the military authority of the land while government continues as it is, but for wilful disregard of Rules prescribed for their government as above stated, rules so salutary, so necessary to justice, and so plain as not possibly to be misunderstood, I concur that duty to my country as well as my [[strikethrough]] country [[/strikethrough]] client requires me to aid him in obtaining the benefit of those rules in the promptest manner & arrest what I concur to be a dangerous precedent. The heavy expense and the great delay attending the prosecution of appeals to & through our Supreme Court [[?]], to the Freedman in his impoverished & ignorant condition, is tantamount to a denial of the benefit of the Rules aforesaid altogether.

Transcription Notes:
Pretty sure last name is Bobbett, per other pages in this series. Also, "Supreme Court" or "superior courts"? -- Beth