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the Freedman was authorized by those men to get all the hands he could. I had nothing to do with hiring them. This Freedman hired some hands who had made some sort of a contract with another man. They worked faithfully all the year, and there being twenty hands made about forty bale of cotton they worked for part of the crop, of which they received nothing. I was sued for hiring negroes who were under contract. The case was tried last week in court at which time I was fined a $100.00 or to go to jail. The witness, who could have proved that the negroes were forced into their final contract, and that it did not have the approval of any agent of the Freedmans Bureau, was not present. I could have put off the trial on this account, but my lawyer thought it such a plain case, that we had nothing to do with the hiring of the hands, would not go to the expence, as I said before everything I had, had been sold. But as the case went, against me my friends paid the fine for me tho