ent of $39.65, as per bill, copy herewith. His name is William
Lockman--he was born in New Jersey, of free parents, and resides at
Philadelphia. A greater sum was required which was reduced by the
allowance of his maintenance (written _labor_,) while at work on the
road, which the law requires the Municipality to pay; but it had not
before been so expounded in the third Municipality. I hope to get it
back in the case of the other three. The allowance for labor, in
addition to their maintenance, is twenty-five cents per day; but they
require those illiterate men to advance the whole before they can
leave the prison, and then to take a certificate for their labor, and
go for it to another department--to collect which, is ten times more
trouble than the money when received is worth. While these free men,
without having committed any fault, were compelled to work in chains,
on the roads, in the burning sun, for 25 cents per day, and pay in
advance 18 3-4 cents per day for maintenance, doctor's, and other
bills, and not able to work half their time, I paid others, working on
ship-board, in sight, two dollars per day. J.B."

The preceding letter of Mr. Barker, furnishes grounds for the belief,
that _hundreds_, if not _thousands_ of free colored persons, from the
different states of this Union, both slave and free from the West
Indies, South America, Mexico, and the British possessions in North
America, and from other parts of the world, are reduced to slavery
_every year_ in our slave states. If a single individual, in the
course of a few days, _accidentally_ discovered _six_ colored free
men, working in irons, and soon to be sold as slaves, in a _single_
southern city, is it not fair to infer, that in all the slave states,
there must be _multitudes_ of such persons, now in slavery, and that
this number is rapidly increasing, by ceaseless accessions?

The letter of Mr. Barker is valuable, also, as a graphic delineation
of the 'public opinion' of the south. The great difficulty with which
the release of these free men was procured, notwithstanding the
personal efforts of Mr. Jacob Barker, who is a gentleman of influence,
and has, we believe, been an alderman of New Orleans, reveals a
'public opinion,' insensible as adamant to the liberty of colored men.

It would be easy to fill scores of pages with details similar to the
preceding. We have furnished enough, however, to show, that, in all
probability, _each_ United States' c