The petitioner, a person of color, has brought this suit to assert his freedom, and for damages against the defendants, who, as the heirs at law of the late Henry D. Bridges, claim and detain him as their slave. He alleges that he is a free man of color, about twenty nine years' of age, and was horn in the District of Columbia; that at the age of eight or ten years he was by his sister put under the protection and in the service of lieutenant Delany, then of the said District; that he served as an ordinary seaman in the United States Navy, on hoard the frigate Constitution, from September, 1825, till July, 1828, when he was discharged at Boston, in the state of Massachusetts; that after his discharge, he returned to his native place, whence shortly after he was clandestinely, forcibly, and fraudulently sent to New Orleans by the said lieutenant Delany, as he believes, and sold as a slave, As the plaintiff has been held in slavery for a number of years previous to the institution of this suit, several successive calls in warranty are to be found in the record, whereby the divers vendors who owned him during this period, have been made parties to this action. The trial took place before a jury, who found in favor of defendants; after a fruitless endeavor on the part of plaintiff to have this verdict set aside, a judgment was entered up in conformity with it, from which he appealed.
The petitioner has failed to show either that he was born free, or that he has ever been emancipated; his evidence renders at most that probable which he should have established by positive proof, admitting that the witnesses make no mistake in point of identity. Their testimony shows that from the beginning of 1826 to July,
Judgment affirmed.