Alexandria Gazette

WICKED REVENGE.—A negro boatman called John Shelton, the property of Mrs. Finch of Goochland, was arrested and brought before the Mayor last Saturday morning, to answer the charge of boring twelve holes, with an augur, into a canal boat loaded with goods, and under the command of Wm. Mayo, a free negro, with the intention of sinking her. The act was a most revengeful one, and but for its timely discovery, might have caused the loss of a large amount of property. As the act was perpetrated in the canal in Henrico county the Mayor declined acting upon it but sent the prisoner to a county Magistrate to be properly dealt with. Such a case has never occurred before, within our knowledge, on the James River and Kanawha Canal.—Rich. Dispatch.