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until they were emancipated, and that the plaintiff Nelson was a stout able bodied Man, and a good field hand when made to work, and was a very ordinary blacksmith; he could do common plantation work, but he had tried him for years, and he would not put him in the public, that he heard Nelson say, he had purchased a set of blacksmith tools & two hundred pounds of Iron from One Boutwell for which he gave four hundred dollars, that he had hit the plaintiff Nelson over three hundred lashes for having improper conduct with Almeda's children, and would abuse them so while attempting to have sexual intercourse with them, that they would not get over it in absences four day, that the only way he had any Knowledge of it, was when Almeda would complain to him about the conduct of Nelson to her children, and when he would take him up to whip him about it, and to talk to him &c. he would confess it. He further testified that Almeda was a criple, her leg had been broken, state she is an ordinery house hand,