The opposition scented scandal in the practice [of SC governors keeping gifts from Indians], and later brought up the case of James Child in confirmation. The slave-dealers, Nairne asserted, had a trick of setting Indians in the English alliance to surprise each other's towns in order to make a quicker sale of their goods for slaves; and to escape punishment they had 'the address to be industrious in procuring presents for the Governor and tradeing in partnership with his Son-in-Law.' James Child, he said, had set the Cherokees upon some friendly Indians in 1706, pretending that he acted on the governor's orders. They took about 160 captives, thirty of whom Child exposed for sale in the Charles Town slave-market, declaring that half were for the governor. The assembly set the captives free, but the governor paid no heed to their petitions to prosecute Child.38 [Note 38: C.O. 5 :306, no. 4; and petition to Proprietors in Huntington Library.]