“Annesley was savagely whipped and brutally mistreated in America and it appeared as if he would die in chains. He was eventually re-sold to another master who accepted his story that he was an English lord and the heir to the Annelsey barony.”

-Hoffman, They Were White and they were Slaves [1]

With proper directions for tradesmen and others, to avoid slavery, when transported from their native country, by the instigation of perfidious traders.

To make the subject of the ensuing pages the more accurate and distinct, I shall, in their place, begin with the proceedings of the Magistrates of Aberdeen, when I arrived in that town in June 1756, after having completed the period of my slavery, as related in the beginning of this narrative. No sooner had I offered this little work to sale in that town, which was then my only means of subsistence, than I was arraigned on a summary complaint at the instance of the Magistrates, before their own tribunal, and carried by three or four town officers to the bar of that tremendous Court of Judicature. The complaint exhibited against me contained in substance, “That I had been guilty of causing print, and of publishing and dispersing this scurrilous and infamous libel, reflecting greatly upon the characters and reputations of the merchants in Aberdeen, and on the town in general, without any ground or reason, whereby the corporation of the city, and whole members thereof, were greatly hurt and prejudged; and that, therefore, I ought to be exemplarily punished in my person and goods; and that the said book, and whole copies thereof, ought to be seized and publicly burnt.”

Such was the tenor of the complaint; and instead of allowing me an opportunity of taking advice, in time to prepare for my defence. I was hurried before them, and concussed by threats of imprisonment to make a declaration of a very extraordinary cast, and dictated by themselves; bearing, that, “I had no ground for advancing and uttering the calumnies mentioned in my book against the merchants in Aberdeen, but the fancy I took in my younger years, which stuck on my memory, though I did not find, that I had reason so to do; nor did I believe these things to be true; and that I was willing to contradict, in a public manner, what I had so advanced," etc.

After eliciting this declaration, the Magistrates, without adjournment; appointed me to find caution to stand trial on the said complaint at any time when called for, and imprisoned till performance; and ordered all the copies of my book to be lodged in the clerk's chamber.

My books were accordingly seized, and myself committed to the custody of the town-officers, who conducted me to jail, and where I must have lain till next day, had not my landlord bailed me cut. Next forenoon the Magistrates proceeded to sentence on their own complaint; and accordingly, they ordained, “The offensive leaves of all the copies of the said book to be cut out, and publicly burnt at the market-cross by the hands of the common hangman, the town-officers attending and publishing the cause of the burning; that I should give in a signed declaration of much the same tenor with the former, begging pardon of the magistrates and merchants in the most submissive manner, and desiring this my recantation to be inserted in the York newspapers, or any other newspapers they should think proper; and also, ordained me to be incarcerated in the tollbooth, till I granted the said declaration; and amerciated [3] me in ten shillings sterling, under the pain of imprisonment; and immediately after to remove out of town."

Such was the sentence of the Magistrates of Aberdeen against me, every particular of which was forthwith put in execution in the most rigorous manner. Had these judges had the least reflection, they must have been conscious, that, in every step of their procedure, they were committing the grossest abuse. The complaint was made by their order and direction, and served at their own instigation, by which means they were first the accusers, and afterwards the condemners. The subject of it was so irrelevant, that they must have been sensible they were prosecuting an innocent man, for relating the melancholy particulars of his life, which ought to have rendered him rather an object of their protection than of their malice. The facts he had set forth in his book, relating to the original of his misfortune were so flagrant, that, had he sued for it, he was entitled to redress against the authors of his miseries, from those very magistrates who now had the cruelty to aggravate them, by inflicting additional hardships.

To pretend ignorance is a very lame excuse. He must have been a very youthful magistrate in 1758, who could not remember some circumstances of a public branch of trade carried on in 1744. It is inconceivable, that, of a whole bench of magistrates, no less than six in number, not one was of an age capable of recollecting what had happened only fourteen years before: nor is it to be presumed, that, of almost all the inhabitants of Aberdeen, they alone, who had the best access to know the traffic of the town, should remain ignorant of a commerce [4], which was carried on in the market-places, on the high streets, and in the avenues to the town, in the most public manner. Neither of these suppositions will easily gain credit.

The magistrates are commonly of such an age, and ought to be men of such reflection, as to render the first impossible; and the second, for the reasons given above, is equally incredible. Every impartial person must therefore be persuaded, that the magistrates were not unacquainted with that illicit species of trade openly carried on in that city about the year 1744, and prior to that period. To prove that there was such an infamous traffic, I appeal to the depositions of several witnesses, some of whom shared in the calamity by the loss of their children and other relations. These I have sub-joined, as they occur in the proof taken on my part.

1. Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman, Returned from Thirteen Years’ Slavery in America, which was adapted by Robert Louis Stevenson into the novel Kidnapped, which was in turn adapted as a Disney film. Ironically, Lord Annesley’s memoir was published the very year before Peter was kidnapped.

Richard Annesley, Memoirs of an unfortunate young nobleman return'd from a thirteen years slavery in America. where he had been sent by the wicked contrivances of his cruel uncle. 1743

2. The making of false and defamatory statements in order to damage someone's reputation; slander.

3. Fined for wrongdoing

4. This statement seems to indicate that the kidnapping and sale of children in Scotland had abated soon after Peter’s abduction in 1744, as Lord Annesley’s memoirs, had just been published, which is given further credence by Peter’s mention of negro shipments into Pennsylvania and the increase in runaway Maryland servants in this period. The process did continue with official sanction concerning criminals, and would extend into the next century with convicts sold into bondage in Australia. But the trade in children seemed to be nearing an end as Peter gathered his depositions.