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crops the present year, and if having been so insisted on by Genl Armstrong, and he being so importuned by the Freedmen to allow them to remain, he consented for them to do so provided they would comply with his terms which were $15.00 for residence of one and a quarter acre of land & firewood, to be paid quarterly in advance, and to leave and turn over the land to him by the 13th December next. Two days after he gave the above consent; Mr. Montgomery (Bureau Attendant) called on the undersigned at his residence in Gloucester City, and said he came not as a Bureau Officer, but as a private individual, at the request of the Freedmen, asking that the amount of $15.00 "be reduced to $10.00" at which time it was lowered to $12.00 for their yards and gardens as inclosed whatever they might embrace, and where not inclosed, not to exceed one third of an acre, and privilege of firewood. Wherefore this private permission [[illegible]] paid for Freedmen to remain, appears to have been immediately seized upon by Genl Armstrong and Capt Massey as sufficient to justify them in taking full charge of his real estate, and renting out the same to such Freedmen as they choose should remain, and absolutely where such terms as they themselves prescribe, as is clearly shown in said communication herewith inclosed, which the undersigned regards as oppressive, because as he said before his land has been restored, and if the Freedmen did not choose to comply with his terms of tenancy, they had an abundance of time to seek homes elsewhere, which was a very easy way to avoid "imposition & injustice"
The undersigned would also state, that when shown said communications of February 25th, he then agreed that the terms of tenancy be $10.00 for residence of an acre and a quarter of land & firewood; but Capt Massy was determined not to allow any other terms but his own, and sometime about the 20th of March he made a tender of the first quarter acre of the present year to the undersigned, which he received under protest. Being first filed in the Bureau office here, and directed to Genl Armstrong, which protest was returned to him on the next day after he [[strikethrough]] I [[/strikethrough]] received the above quarter acre by Mr. Montgomery saying, that Capt Massy declined to forward it to Genl Armstrong. And afterwards the undersigned addressed a communication to Genl Armstrong stating the facts of his case, and inclose the protest with the request, that he would give an answer to the same at his earliest convenience and as no answer from him has been received, causes this communication to the addressed, to a higher functionary of the Bureau.