O Say Can You See

The deposition of Henry Davis of Prince George's County aged sixty three years being sworn on the holy Evangely of Almighty God touching his knowledge in these causes, saith that he does not know John Hickman; and that he has seen the defendant Richard Smith only once. That he has seen Charles Mahoney once, and does not know the defendant John Ashton. Being asked if he knew Anne Joyce who lived in the family of Col. Henry Darnall, answers he did not; That he has understood from his late father Henry Davis who was a Joiner and Carpenter by trade, that he had worked at the Woodyard where the said Darnall lived, and he has often heard his father say that he knew a negro woman by the name of Joyce; that she was a jet black woman, and was born as he (his father) was informed in Barbadoes; that some of the family to whom she belonged in Barbadoes, went to England, and that the then Lord Baltimore brought her into Maryland with him in the Character of a Cook or waiting maid but whether from England or Barbadoes does not know when she was a young woman; that his father died about seventeen years ago and was in his ninetieth year when he died; that this conversation he has heard often; and he has heard his father say that she the said Joyce had three or four sons which were the strongest men he ever knew to come from one woman; that he understood from his father that all the said sons were mulattoes, and that their father were white men; that his father was born in Prince George's County about two miles from Upper Marlbrough: Being asked, if he has   heard his father say that Lord Baltimore brought the said Joyce from England? answers he cannot say, but he has often heard him say that Lord Baltimore got her from a family [illegible] some of which moved from Barbadoes to England. That he never heard his Father say whether she was free or a slave, but He understood from him that she was held as a slave and her Children also. That one of the Children was named Thomas Crane and the other sons had different sirnames, taken as he understood from their supposed Fathers

Sworn to this 9th Octr 1793 before the Subscriber Bullen.