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got into hands who were Sharpers - one of them too was his Lawyer (W. D. Roberts Esq) & under various pretences has held him to service and labor ever since & this year has actually hired him out to Judge Starke. Starke though is no party or privy to the fraud - Nor was aware of the frauds practiced upon the negro - They had this poor man bound up in contracts and in such cases the courts of law cannot believe. Chancery Courts might but this resort would be both tedious and expensive. I hope you will confer with Hurt the bearer & grant his Brother Robert Hurt such relief as his case requires. I think myself that Roberts was entitled to a fee of $50.00 and that Hurt is entitled to $10.00 a month for his time Say from the Fall term Oct 1865, but of this you are the better judge

I had a case here last week the defence of a Father (Warren Bird) charged with enticing away an apprentice to C. S. Lee Sr (Boy 15 years old) who had been bound to said Lee without & against the consent of his Father & Mother - I made a regular application to the Judge of Probate to revoke the indenture & would have succeeded but for the frauds practiced by said Lee and his Son the Sheriff they had the Father in jail Lee had a whiskey Shop where the Father was carried regularly all manner of statements made to him & they actually succeeded in getting the parents to bind the Boy themselves, and then to get them to bind others of their children to them or to one of his sons - Tricks of this sort are common. This conduct is not approved by any of our good citizens but is justly condemned All are alike afraid to make reports but if an officer was here much Shamefully much would work out

I have the honor Sir
to be Very Respectfully
G. T. Yelverton
 

Transcription Notes:
edited: underlines no longer required, removed, the name is Yelverton