WILMINGTON, 8th mo. 21st, 1858.
ESTEEMED FRIEND:--WILLIAM STILL:--This is my 69th birth-day, and
I do not know any better way to celebrate it in a way to accord
with my feelings, than to send to thee two fugitives, man and
wife; the man has been here a week waiting for his wife, who is
expected in time to leave at 9 this evening in the cars for thy
house with a pilot, who knows where thee lives, but I cannot
help but feel some anxiety about the woman, as there is great
commotion just now in the neighborhood where she resides. There
were 4 slaves betrayed near the Maryland line by a colored man
named Jesse Perry a few nights since. One of them made a
confidant of him, and he agreed to pilot them on their way, and
had several white men secreted to take them as soon as they got
in his house; he is the scoundrel that was to have charge of the
7 I wrote you about two weeks since; their master was to take or
send them there, and he wanted me to send for them. I have since
been confirmed it was a trap set to catch one of our colored men
and me likewise, but it was no go. I suspected him from the
first, but afterwards was fully confirmed in my suspicions. We
have found the two Rust boys, John and Elsey Bradley, who the
villain of a Bust took out of jail and sold to a trader of the
name of Morris, who sold them to a trader who took them to
Richmond, Virginia, where they were sold at public sale two days
before we found them, for $2600, but fortunately the man had not
paid for them; our Attorney had them by habeas corpus before a
Judge, who detained them till we can prove their identity and
freedom; they are to have a hearing on 2d day next, when we hope
to have a person on there to prove them. In haste, thine,