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diff --git a/old/61074-0.txt b/old/61074-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4649e5e..0000000 --- a/old/61074-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5781 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chains and Freedom, by Charles Edwards Lester - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Chains and Freedom - or, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wheeler, a Colored Man Yet Living - -Author: Charles Edwards Lester - -Release Date: January 1, 2020 [EBook #61074] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAINS AND FREEDOM *** - - - - -Produced by hekula03, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -[Illustration: - - PETER WHEELER. - J.W. Evans, Pinrt P. H. Reason, Sc. -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES - - OF - - PETER WHEELER. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - CHAINS AND FREEDOM: - - OR, - - THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES - - OF - - PETER WHEELER, - - A COLORED MAN YET LIVING. - - - - A SLAVE IN CHAINS, - A SAILOR ON THE DEEP, - AND - A SINNER AT THE CROSS. - - - - THREE VOLUMES IN ONE. - - BY - - THE AUTHOR OF THE ‘MOUNTAIN WILD FLOWER.’ - - - ------------------ - - “Mind not high things; but condescend to men of low estate.” - - PAUL. - - ------------------ - - - New York: - PUBLISHED BY E. S. ARNOLD & CO. - 1839. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ---------------------------------------------------------------- - -ENTERED, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, in the - Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New York. - - ---------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PREFACE. - - --------------------- - - -The following Narrative was taken entirely from the lips of Peter -Wheeler. I have in all instances given his own language, and faithfully -recorded his story as he told it, _without any change whatever_. There -are many astonishing facts related in this book, and before the reader -finishes it, he will at least feel that - - “Truth is stranger than fiction.” - -But the truth of every thing here stated can be relied on. The subject -of this story is well known to the author, who for a long time brake -unto him “the bread of life,” as a brother in Christ, and beloved for -the Redeemer’s sake. There are, likewise, hundreds of living witnesses, -who have for many years been acquain’ted with the man, and aware of the -incidents here recorded, who cherish perfect confidence in his veracity. - -He has many times, for many years, related the same facts, to many -persons, in the same language _verbatim_; and individuals to whom the -author has read some of the following incidents, have recognized the -story and language, as they heard them from the hero’s lips long before -the author ever heard his name. There are also persons yet living, whom -I have seen and known, who witnessed many of Peter’s most awful -sufferings. - - * * * * * - -Of course, the book lays no claim to the merit of _literature_, and will -not be reviewed as such; but it does claim the merit of _strict verity_, -which is no mean characteristic in a book, in these days. - -The subject, and the author, have but one object in view in bringing the -book before the public:—a mutual desire to contribute as far as they -can, to the freedom of enchained millions for whom Christ died. And if -any heart may be made to feel one emotion of benevolence, and lift up a -more earnest cry to God for the suffering slave; if one generous impulse -may be awakened in a slaveholder’s bosom towards his fellow traveller to -God’s bar, whose crime is, in being “born with a skin not coloured like -his own;” and if it may inspire in the youthful mind, the spirit of that -sweet verse, consecrated by the hallowed associations of a New-England -home— - - - “I was not born a little slave - To labour in the sun, - And wish I were but in my grave, - And all my labor done.” - - -it will not be in vain. - - * * * * * - -That it may hasten that glorious consummation which we know is fast -approaching, when slavery shall be known only in the story of past time, -is the earnest prayer of the - - AUTHOR. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _Certificate of the Citizens of Spencertown._ - - -This is to certify, that we, the undersigned, are, and have been _well -acquain’ted_ with Peter Wheeler, for a number of years, and that we -place _full confidence in all his statements_:— - - - ERASTUS PRATT, Justice of the Peace. - CHARLES B. DUTCHER, Justice of the Peace. - ABIAH W. MAYHEW, Deacon of the Presbyterian Church. - CHARLES H. SKIFF, M.D. - WILLIAM. A. DEAN. - JOHN GROFF. - DANIEL BALDWIN. - ELISHA BABCOCK. - PHILIP STRONG. - PATRICK M. KNAPP. - WILLIAM TRAVER. - EPHRAIM BERNUS. - SAMUEL HIGGINS. - WILLIAM PARSONS. - JAMES BALDWIN. - FRANCIS CHAREVOY. - - -[It may be proper to state that many of these gentlemen have known Peter -more than thirteen years; likewise, that they are men of the first -respectability. - - AUTHOR.] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS. - - ---------- - - BOOK THE FIRST. - - - CHAPTER I. - - Author’s first interview with Peter—Peter calls on the Page 17–35 - Author, and begins his story—his birth and residence—is - adopted by Mrs. Mather and lives in Mr. Mather’s - house—his “_red scarlet coat_”—fishing expedition on - Sunday with Hagar when he sees the Devil—a feat of - horsemanship—saves the life of master’s oldest son, and - is bit in the operation by a wild hog—an encounter with - an “old-fashioned cat owl” in the Cedar Swamp—a man - killed by wild cats—a short “sarmint” at a Quaker - Meeting—“I and John makes a pincushion of a calf’s - nose, and got _tuned_ for it I tell ye”—holyday’s - amusements—the marble egg—“I and John great - cronies”—Mistress sick—Peter hears something in the - night which he thinks a forerunner of her death—_she - dies a Christian_—her dying words—Peter’s feelings on - her death. - - - CHAPTER II. - - Peter emancipated by his old Master’s Will—but is stolen Page 36–55 - and sold at auction, and bid off by GIDEON MOREHOUSE ☜ - Hagar tries to buy her brother back—parting scene—his - reception at his new Master’s—sudden change in - fortune—Master’s cruelty—the Muskrat skins—prepare to - go into “the new countries”—start on the journey - “incidents of travel” on the road—Mr. Sterling, who is - a sterling-good man, tries to buy Peter—gives him a - pocket full of “Bungtown coppers”—abuse—story of the - Blue Mountain—Oswego—Mr. Cooper, an - Abolitionist—journey’s end—Cayuga county, New York. - - - CHAPTER III. - - They get into a wild country, “full of all kinds of Page 56–82 - varmints,” and begin to build—Peter knocked off of a - barn by his master—story of a rattlesnake charming a - child—Peter hews the timber for a new house, and gets - paid in lashes—Tom Ludlow an abolitionist—Peter’s - friends all advise him to run off—the fox-tail company, - their expeditions on Oneida Lake—deer stories—Rotterdam - folks—story of a pain’ter—master pockets Peter’s share - of the booty and bounty—the girls of the family - befriend him—a sail on the Lake—Peter is captain, and - saves the life of a young lady who falls overboard, and - nearly loses his own—kindly and generously treated by - the young lady’s father, who gives Peter a splendid - suit of clothes worth seventy dollars, and “a good many - other notions”—his master ☞ steals his clothes ☜ and - wears them out himself—Mr. Tucker’s opinion of his - character, and Peter’s of his fate. - - - CHAPTER IV. - - An affray in digging a cellar—Peter sick of a typhus Page 83–124 - fever nine months—the kindness of “the - gals”—physician’s bill—a methodist preacher, and a leg - of tain’ted mutton—_“master shoots arter him” with a - rifle!!_—a bear story—where the skin went to—a glance - at religious operations in that region—“a camp - meeting”—Peter tied up in the woods in the night, and - “expects to be eat up by all kinds of wild - varmints”—master a drunkard—owns a still—abuses his - family—a story of blood, and stripes, and groans, and - cries—Peter finds ‘Lecta a friend in need—expects to be - killed—Abers intercedes for him, and “makes it his - business”—Mrs. Abers pours oil into Peter’s - wounds—Peter goes back, and is better treated a little - while—master tries to stab him with a pitchfork, and - Peter nearly kills him in self-defence—tries the rifle - and swears he will end Peter’s existence now—but the - ball don’t hit—the crisis comes, and that night Peter - swears to be free or die in the cause. - - - CHAPTER V. - - Peter’s master prosecuted for abusing him, and fined Page 155–171 - $500, and put under a bond of $2000 for good - behavior—Peter for a long time has a plan for running - away, and the girls help him in it—“the big eclipse of - 1806”—Peter starts at night to run away, and the girls - carry him ten miles on his road—the parting - scene—travels all night, and next day sleeps in a - hollow log in the woods—accosted by a man on the - Skeneateles bridge—sleeps in a barn—is discovered—two - pain’ters on the road—discovered and pursued—frightened - by a little girl—encounter with “two black gentlemen - with a white ring round their necks”—“Ingens” chase - him—“Utica quite a thrifty little place”—hires out nine - days—Little Falls—hires out on a boat to go to - “Snackady”—makes three trips—is discovered by Morehouse - ☜—the women help him to escape to Albany—hires out on - Truesdell’s sloop—meets master in the street—goes to - New York—a reward of $100 offered for him—Capt. comes - to take him back to his master, for “one hundred - dollars don’t grow on every bush”—“feels - distressedly”—but Capt. Truesdell promises to protect - him, “as long as grass grows and water runs”—he follows - the river. - - - BOOK THE SECOND. - - CHAPTER I. - - Beginning of sea stories—sails with Captain Truesdell for Page 173–185 - the West-Indies—feelings on leaving the American - shore—sun-set at sea—shake hands with a French - frigate—a storm—old Neptune—a bottle or a - shave—caboose—Peter gets two feathers in his cap—St. - Bartholomews—climate—slaves—oranges—turtle—a small pig, - “but dam’ old”—weigh anchor for New York—“sail ho!”—a - wreck—a sailor on a buoy—get him aboard—his story—gets - well, and turns out to be an enormous swearer—couldn’t - draw a breath without an oath—approach to New - York—quarantine—pass the Narrows—drop anchor—rejoicing - times—Peter jumps ashore “a free nigger.” - - - CHAPTER II. - - Peter spends the winter of 1806–7 in New York—sails in Page 185–199 - June in the Carnapkin for Bristol—a sea tempest—ship - becalmed off the coast of England—catch a shark and - find a lady’s hand, and gold ring and locket in - him—this locket, &c. lead to a trial, and the murderer - hung—the mother of the lady visits the ship; sail for - home—Peter sails with captain Williams on a trading - voyage—Gibralter—description of it—sail to - Bristol—chased by a privateer—she captured by a French - frigate—sail for New York—Peter lives a gentleman at - large in “the big city of New York.” - - - CHAPTER III. - - Peter sails for Gibralter with Captain Bainbridge—his Page 202–230 - character—horrible storm—Henry falls from aloft and is - killed—a funeral at sea—English lady prays—Gibralter - and the landing of soldiers—a frigate and four - merchantmen—Napoleon—Wellington and Lord Nelson—a slave - ship—her cargo—five hundred slaves—a wake of blood - fifteen hundred miles—sharks eat ’em—Amsterdam—winter - there—Captain B. winters in Bristol—Dutchmen—visit to - an old battle field—stories about Napoleon—Peter falls - overboard and is drowned, _almost_—make New York the - fourth of July—Peter lends five hundred dollars and - loses it—sails to the West Indies with Captain - Thompson—returns to New York and winters with Lady - Rylander—sails with Captain Williams for - Gibralter—fleet thirty-seven sail—cruise up the - Mediterranean—Mt. Etna—sails to Liverpool—Lord - Wellington and his troops—war between Great Britain and - the United States—sails for New York and goes to sea no - more—his own confessions of his character—dreadful - wicked—sings a sailor song and winds up his yarn. - - - BOOK THE THIRD. - - CHAPTER I. - - Lives at Madam Rylander’s—Quaker Macy—Susan a colored Page 233–248 - girl lives with Mr. Macy—she is kidnapped and carried - away, and sold into slavery—Peter visits at the - “Nixon’s, mazin’ respectable” colored people in - Philadelphia—falls in love with Solena—gits the consent - of old folks—fix wedding day—“ax parson”—Solena dies in - his arms—his grief—compared with Rhoderic Dhu—lives in - New Haven—sails for New York—drives hack—Susan Macy is - redeemed from slavery—she tells Peter her story of - blood and horror, and abuse, and the way she made her - escape from her chains. - - - CHAPTER II. - - Kidnappin’ in New York—Peter spends three years in Page 249–260 - Hartford—couldn’t help thinkin’ of Solena—Hartford - Convention—stays a year in Middletown—hires to a man in - West Springfield—makes thirty-five dollars fishin’ - nights—great revival in Springfield—twenty - immersed—sexton of church in Old Springfield—religious - sentiments—returns to New York—_Solena again_—Susan - Macy married—pulls up for the Bay State again—lives - eighteen months in Westfield—six months in - Sharon—Joshua Nichols leaves his wife—Peter goes after - him and finds him in Spencertown, New York—takes money - back to Mrs. Nichols—returns to Spencertown—lives at - Esq. Pratt’s—Works next summer for old Captain - Beale—his character—falls in love—married—loses his - only child—wife helpless eight months—great revival of - 1827—feels more like gittin’ religion—“One sabba’day - when the minister preached at me”—a resolution to get - religion—how to become a christian—evening - prayer-meeting—Peter’s convictions deep and - distressing—going home he kneels on a rock and - prayed—his prayer—the joy of a redeemed soul—his family - rejoice with him. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK THE FIRST. - - - ------- - - - - PETER WHEELER IN CHAINS. - - - DEDICATED TO - - -Every body who hates oppression, and don’t believe that it is right, - under any circumstances, to buy and sell the image of the Great God - Almighty; and to all who love Human Liberty well enough to help to - break every yoke, that the oppressed may go free——God bless all such! - - - “I own I am shocked at the _purchase_ of slaves, - And fear those that buy them and sell them are knaves; - What I hear of their hardships, their tortures and groans, - Is almost enough to draw pity from stones.” - - COWPER. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER I. - -Author’s first interview with Peter—Peter calls on the Author, and - begins his story—his birth and residence—is adopted by Mrs. Mather and - lives in Mr. Mather’s house—his “_red scarlet coat_“—fishing - expedition on Sunday with Hagar when he sees the Devil—a feat of - horsemanship—saves the life of master’s oldest son, and is bit in the - operation by a wild hog—an encounter with an “old-fashioned cat owl” - in the Cedar Swamp—a man killed by wild cats—a short “sarmint” at a - Quaker Meeting—“I and John makes a pincushion of a calf’s nose, and - got _tuned_ for it, I tell ye”—holyday’s amusements—the marble egg—“I - and John great cronies”—Mistress sick—Peter hears something in the - night which he thinks a forerunner of her death—_she dies a - Christian_—her dying words—Peter’s feelings on her death. - - -_Author._ “Peter, your history is so remarkable, that I have thought it -would make quite an interesting book; and I have a proposal to make -you.” - -_Peter._ “Well, Sir, I’m always glad to hear the Domine talk; what’s -your proposal? I guess you’re contrivin’ to put a spoke in the Abolition -wheel, ain’t ye?” - -A. “Peter you know I’m a friend to the black man, and try to do him -good.” - -P. “Yis, I know that, I tell ye.” - -A. “Well, I was going to say that this question of Slavery is all the -talk every where, and as _facts_ are so necessary to help men in coming -to correct conclusions in regard to it, I have thought it would be a -good thing to write a story of your life and adventures—for you know -that every body likes to read such books, and they do a great deal of -good in the cause of Freedom.” - -P. “I s’pose then you’ve got an idee of makin’ out some sich a book as -Charles Ball, and that has done a sight of good. But it seems to me I’ve -_suffered_ as much as Charles Ball, and I’ve sartinly _travelled ten -times as fur_ as he ever did. But I should look funny enough in print, -shouldn’t I? The Life and Adventers of Peter Wheeler—!! ha! ha!! ha!!! -And then you see every feller here in town, would be a stickin’ up his -nose at the very idee, jist because I’m a “nigger” as they say—or -“snow-ball,” or somethin’ else; but never mind, if it’s a goin’ to du -any _good_, why I say _let split_, and we’ll go it nose or no -nose—snow-ball or no snow-ball.” - -A. “Well, I’m engaged this morning Peter, but if you will call down to -my study this afternoon at two o’clock, I’ll be at home, and ready to -begin. I want you to put on your “thinking cap,” and be prepared to -begin your story, and I’ll write while you talk, and in this way we’ll -do a good business—good bye Peter, give my love to your family, and be -down in season.” - -P. “Good bye Domine, and jist give _my_ love to your folks; and I’ll be -down afore two, if nothin’ happens more’n I know on.” - - * * * * * - -A. “Walk in—Ah! Peter you’re come have you? you are _punctual_ too, for -the clock is just striking. I’m glad to see you; take a seat on the -settee.” - -P. “I thought I couldn’t be fur out of the way: and I’m right glad to -see _you_ tu, and you pretty well? and how does your lady du?” - -A. “All well, Peter.” - -P. “You seem to be all ready to weigh anchor.” - -A. “Yes, and we’ll be soon under way.—And now, Peter, I have perfect -confidence in your veracity, but I want you to watch every word you -utter, for ’twill all be read by ten thousand folks, and I wouldn’t send -out any exaggerated statement, or coloured story, for all the books in -Christendom. You know it’s hard to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and -nothing but the truth;’ and now you will have plenty of time to _think_, -for I can’t write as fast as you will talk, and I want you to think -carefully, and speak accurately, and we’ll have a _true_ story, and I -think a _good_ one.” - -P. “I’ll take good care of that, Mr. L—— and we’ll have a _true_ story -if we don’t have a big one; but I’m a thinkin’ that afore we git through -we’ll have a pretty good yarn spun, as the sailors say. I always thought -’twas bad enough to tell one lie, but a man must be pretty bad to tell -one in a book, for if he has ten thousand books printed, he will print -ten thousand lies, and that’s lying on tu big a scale.” - -A. “Well, Peter, in what age, and quarter of the world were you born?” - -P. “As near as I can find out, I was born the 1st of January 1789, at -Little Egg Harbour, a parish of Tuckertown, New Jersey. I was born a -slave ☜—and many a time, like old Job, I’ve _cussed_ the day I was born. -My mother has often told me, that my great grandfather was born in -Africa, and one day he and his little sister was by the seaside pickin’ -up shells, and there come a small boat along shore with white sailors, -and ketches ’em both, and they cried to go back and see mother, but they -didn’t let ’em go, and they took ’em off to a big black ship that was -crowded with negroes they’d stole; and there they kept ’em in a dark -hole, and almost starved and choked for some weeks, they should guess, -and finally landed ’em in Baltimore, and there they was _sold_. -Grandfather used to set and tell these ’ere stories all over to mother, -and set and cry and cry jist like a child, arter he’d got to be an old -man, and tell how he wanted to see mother on board that ship, and how -happy he and his sister was, a playing in the sand afore the ship come; -and jist so mother used to set and trot me on her knee, and tell me -these ’ere stories as soon as I could understand ’em—” - -“Well, as I was sayin’, I was born in Tuckertown, and my master’s name -was Job Mather. He was a man of family and property, and had a wife and -two sons, and a large plantation. He was a Quaker by profession, and -used to go to the Quaker meetin’s; but afore I git through with him, -I’ll show you he warn’t overstocked with Religion. He was the first and -last Quaker I ever heard on, that owned a slave,[1] and he warn’t a -_full-blooded Quaker_, for if he had been, he wouldn’t owned me; for a -full-blooded Quaker won’t own a slave. I was the only slave he owned, -and he didn’t own me ☜ but this, is the way he _come by_ me.[2] Mistress -happened to have a child the same time I was born, and the little feller -died. So she sent to Dinah my mother, and got me to nuss her, when I was -only eight days old.” - -Footnote 1: - - Would to God, it could be said of any other denomination of Christians - in Christendom!! - -Footnote 2: - - A grand distinction for some _big Doctors_ to learn! - -“Well, arter I’d got weaned, and was about a year old, mother comes to -mistress, and says she, ‘Mistress, have you got through with my baby?’ -‘No,’ says Mistress, ‘no Dinah, I mean to bring him up myself.’ And so -she kept me, and called me Peter Wheeler, for that was my father’s name, -and so I lived in master’s family almost jist like his own children.” - -“The first thing I recollect was this:——Master and Mistress, went off up -country on a journey, and left I and John, (John was her little boy -almost my age,) with me at home, and says she as she goes away, ‘now -boys if you’ll be _good_, when I come back, I’ll bring you some handsome -presents.’” - -“Well, we _was_ good, and when she comes back, she gives us both a suit -of clothes, and mine was _red scarlet_, and it had a little coat -buttoned on to a pair of trousers, and a good many buttons on ’em, all -up and down be-for’ard and behind, and I had a little cap, with a good -long tostle on it; and oh! when I first got ’em on, if I didn’t feel -_big_, I won’t guess.” - -“I used to do ’bout as I was a mind tu, until I was eight or nine year -old, though Master and Mistress used to make I and John keep Sunday -_’mazin strict_; yet, I remember one Sunday, when they was gone to -Quaker meetin’, I and Hagar, (she was my sister, and lived with my -mother, and mother was free,) well, I and Hagar went down to the creek -jist by the house, a fishin’. _She_ stood on the bridge, and _I_ waded -out up to my middle, and had big luck, and in an hour I had a fine -basket full. But jist then I see a flouncin’ in the water, and a great -monstrous big thing got hold of my hook, and yauked it arter him, pole, -line, nigger and all, I’d enemost said, and if he didn’t make a -squashin’ then I’m a white man. Well, Hagar see it, and she was scart -almost to pieces, and off she put for the house, and left me there -alone. Well, I thought sure ’nough ’twas the Devil, I’d hearn tell so -much ’bout the old feller; and I took my basket and put out for the -house like a white-head, and I thought I _should_ die, I was _so scart_. -We got to the house and hid under the bed, all a tremblin’ jist like a -leaf, afeard to stir one inch. Pretty soon the old folks comes home, and -so out we crawled, and they axed us the matter, and so we up and telled -’em all about it, and Master, says he ‘why sure ’nough ’twas the Devil, -and all cause you went a fishin’ on a Sunday, and if you go down there a -fishin’ agin Sunday he’ll catch you both, and that’ll be the end of you -two snow-balls.” - -A. “Didn’t he whip you, Peter, to pay for it?” - -P. “Whip us? No, Sir; I tell ye what ’tis, what he telled us ’bout the -Devil, paid us more’n all the whippens in creation.” - -A. “What was the big thing in the creek?” - -P. “Why, I s’pose ’twas a _shark_; they used to come up the creek from -the ocean.” - -A. “Did you have much Religious Instruction?” - -P. “Why, the old folks used to tell us we musn’t lie and steal and play -sabba’day, for if we did, the _old boy_ would come and carry us off; and -that was ’bout all the Religion I got from them, and all I knowed ’bout -it, as long as I lived there.” - -A. “What did you used to do when you got old enough to work?” - -P. “Why, I lived in the house, and almost jist like a gal I knew when -washin’-day come, and I’d out with the poundin’-barrel, and _on_ with -the big kittle, and besides I used to do all the heavy cookin’ in the -kitchen, and carry the dinner out to the field hands, and scrub, and -scour knives, and all sich work.” - -A. “Did you always used to have plenty to eat?” - -P. “Oh? yis, Sir, I had the handlin’ of the victuals, and I had my -_fill_, I tell ye.” - -A. “Did you ever go to school, Peter?” - -P. “Yis, Sir, I went one day when John was sick in his place, and that -was the only day I ever went, in all my life, and I larned my A, B, C’s -through, both ways, and never forgot ’em arter that.” - -A. “Well, did you ever meet with any accidents?” - -P. “Why, it’s a wonder I’m _alive_, I’ve had so many wonderful -_escapes_. When I was ’bout ten year old, Master had a beautiful horse, -only he was as wild as a pain’ter, and so one day when he was gone away, -I and John gits him out, and he puts me on, and ties my legs under his -belly, so I shouldn’t git flung off, and he run, and snorted, and broke -the string, and pitched me off, and enemost broke my head, and if my -skull hadn’t a been pretty thick, I guess he would; and I didn’t get -well in almost six weeks.” Another thing I think on, Master had some of -these ’ere old-fashioned long-eared and long-legged hogs, and he used to -turn ’em out, like other folks, in a big wood nearby, and when they was -growed up, fetch ’em and pen ’em up, and fat ’em; and so Master fetched -home two that was dreadful wild, and they had tushes _so long_, and put -’em in a pen to fat. Well, his oldest son gits over in the pen one day -to clean out the trough, and one on ’em put arter him, and oh! how he -_bawled_, and run to git out; I heard him, and run and reached over the -pen, and catched hold on him, and tried to lift him out; but the old -feller had got hold of his leg, and took out a whole mouthful, and then -let go; and I pulled like a good feller, and got him most over, but the -old sarpent got hold of _my hand_, and bit it through and through, and -there’s the scar yit.” - -A. “Did you let go, Peter?” - -P. “Let go? No! I tell ye I didn’t; the hog got hold of his heel, and -bit the ball right off; but when he let go _that_ time, I fetched a -dreadful lift, and I got him over the pen, _safe and sound, only_ he was -badly bit. - -“And while I think of it, one day Mistress took me to go with her -through the Cedar Swamp to see some Satan, only she took me as she said -to keep the snakes off. It was two miles through the woods, and we went -on a road of cedar-rails, and when we got into the swamp, I see a big -old-fashioned cat owl a settin’ on a limb up ’bout fifteen foot from the -ground I guess; and as I’d heard an owl couldn’t see in the day time, I -thought I’d creep up slily, and catch him, and I says ‘Mistress,’ says -I, ‘will you wait?’ and she says, ‘yis, if you’ll be quick.’ And so up I -got, and jist as I was agoin to grab him, he jumped down, and lit on my -head, and planted his big claws in my wool and begun to peck, and I -hollered like a loon, and swung off, and down I come, and he stuck tight -and pecked worse than ever. I hollows for Mistress, and by this time she -comes up with a club, and she pounded the old feller, but he wouldn’t -git off, and she pounded him till he was dead; and his claws stuck so -tight in my wool, Mistress had to cut ’em out with my jack-knife, and up -I got, glad ’nough to git off as I did; and I crawled out of the mud, -and the blood come a runnin’ down my head, and I was clawed and pecked -like a good feller, but I didn’t go owlin’ agin very soon, I tell ye.” - -“Well, we got there, and this was Saturday, and we stayed till the next -arternoon. Sunday mornin’ I see a man go by, towards our house, with an -axe on his shoulder; and we started in the arternoon, and when we’d got -into the middle of the swamp there lay that man _dead_, with two big -wild cats by him that he’d killed: he’d split one on ’em open in the -head, and the axe lay buried in the neck of t’other; and there they all -lay dead together, all covered with blood, and sich a pitiful sight I -hain’t seen. But oh! how thick the wild cats was in that swamp, and you -could hear ’em squall in the night, as thick as frogs in the spring; but -ginerally they kept pretty still in the day time, and so we didn’t think -there was any danger till now; and we had to leave the dead man there -alone, only the dead wild cats was with him, and make tracks as fast as -we cleverly could, for home.” - -A. “Did you ever go to meetings?” - -P. “Sometimes I used to go to Quaker meetin’s with mistress, and there -we’d set and look first at one and then at t’other; and bi’m’by somebody -would up and say a word or two, and down he’d set, and then another, and -_down he’d set_. Sometimes they was the stillest, and sometimes the -noisiest meetin’s I ever see. One time, I remember, we went to hear a -new Quaker preacher, and there was a mighty sight of folks there; and I -guess we set still an hour, without hearin’ a word from anybody: and -that ’ere feller was a waitin’ for _his spirit_, I s’pose; and, finally -at last, an old woman gits up and squarks through her nose, and says -she, “Oh! all you young gentlemen beware of them ’ere young -ladies—Ahem!—Oh! all you young ladies beware of them ’ere young -gentlemen—Ahem—Peneroyal tea is good for a cold!” ☜ and down she sat, -and I roared right out, and I never was so tickled in all my life; and -the rest on ’em looked as sober as setten’ hens:—but I couldn’t hold in, -and I snorted out _straight_; and so mistress wouldn’t let me go agin. -And now you are a Domine, and I wants to ask you if the Lord inspired -her to git up, whether or no He didn’t forsake her soon arter she _got_ -up?” - -A. “Why, Peter, you’ve made the same remark about her, that a famous -historian makes about Charles Second, a wicked king of England. Some of -the king’s friends said, the Grace of God brought him to the throne—this -historian said, “if it _brought_ him to the throne it forsook him very -soon after he _got_ there.” - -A. “Did you have any fun holydays, Peter.” - -P. “Oh! yis, I and John used to be ‘mazing thick, and always together, -and always in mischief——One time, I recollect, when master was gone -away, we cut up a curious dido; master had a calf that was dreadful -gentle, and I and John takes him, and puts a rope round his neck, and -pulls his nose through the fence, and drove it full of pins, and he -blatted and blatted like murder, and finally mistress see us, and out -she come, and makes us pull all the pins out, one by one, and let him -go; she didn’t say much, but goes and cuts a parcel of sprouts, and I -concluded she was a goin’ to _tune_ us. But it come night, we went into -the house, and she was mighty good, and says she, ‘come boys, I guess -it’s about bed time;’ and so she hands us a couple of basins of samp and -milk, and we eat it, and off to bed, a chucklin’, to think we’d got off -as well as we had. But we’d no sooner got well to bed, and nicely -kivered up, when I see a light comin’ up stairs, and mistress was a -holdin’ the candle in one hand, and a bunch of sprouts in t’other; and -she comes up to the bed, and says she, ‘boys do you sleep warm? I guess -I’ll tuck you up a little warmer, and, at that, she off with every rag -of bed clothes, and if she _didn’t tune_ us, I miss my guess: and ‘now,’ -says she, ‘John see that you be in better business next time, when your -dad’s gone; and _you nigger_, you good for nothin little rascal, you -make a pincushion of a calf’s nose agin, will ye?’ And I tell ye they -_set close, them ’ere sprouts_.” - -A. “Well, Peter, you were going to talk about holydays, and I shouldn’t -think it much of a holyday to be ‘tuned with them sprouts.’” - -P. “Oh! yis, Sir, we had great times every Christmas and New-Years; but -we thought the most of Sain’t Valentine’s Day. The boys and gals of the -whole neighborhood, used to git together, and carry on, and make fun, -and _sich like_. We used to play pin a good deal, and I and John used to -go snacks, and cheat like Sancho Panza; and there’s where we got the -pins to stick in the calf’s nose, I was tellin’ you on. We used to have -a good deal of _fun_ sometimes in _bilein eggs_. Mistress would send us -out to hunt eggs, and we’d find a nest of a dozen, likely, and only -carry in three or four, and lay the rest by for holydays. Well, we used -to bile eggs, as I was sayin’, and the boys would strike biled eggs -together, and the one that didn’t get his egg broke should have -t’other’s, for his’n was the best egg. Well, we got a contrivance, I and -John did, that brought us a fine bunch of eggs. John’s uncle was down -the country once, and he gin John a smooth marble egg: oh! ’twas a -dreadful funny thing, and I guess he’s got it yit, if he’s a -livin’—well, we kept this egg, year in, and year out, and we’d take it -to the holydays, and break all the eggs there, and carry home a nice -parcel, and have a good bunch to give away, and I guess as how the boys -never found it out.” - -A. “Why, you had as good times as you could ask for, it seems to me.” - -P. “Oh! yis, Sir, I see many bright days, and, when I was a boy, I guess -no feller had more fun than I did. And I mean, Domine, all through the -book, to tell things jist as they was, and when I was frolicsome and -happy I’ll say so, and when I was in distress, I’ll say so; for it seems -to me, a book ought to tell things jist as they be. Well, I had got -about to the end of my happy fun, for mistress, who was the best friend -I had, was took sick, and I expected her to die—and sure ’nough she did -die; and as I was kind ‘a superstitious, one night afore she died, I -heard some strange noises, that scart me, and made me think ’em -forerunners of mistress’ death; and for years and years them noises used -to trouble me distressedly. Well, mistress had been a good woman, and -died _like a christian_. When she thought she was a dyin’, she called up -her husband to her bed-side, and took him by the hand, and says, ‘I am -now goin’ to my God, and your God, and I want you to prepare to follow -me to heaven,’ and says ‘farewell;’ she puts her arms round his neck and -kisses him. Then she calls up her children, and says pretty much the -same thing to them; and then me, and she puts her arms round all our -necks, and kisses us all, and says ‘good bye dear children,’ and she -fell back into the bed and died, without a struggle or a groan. - -“Oh! how I cried when mistress died. She had been kind to me, and loved -me, and it seemed I hadn’t any thing left in the world worth livin’ for; -put it all together, I guess I cried more’n a week ’bout it, and nothin’ -would pacify me. I _loved_ mistress, and when I see her laid in the -grave it broke my heart. I have never in all my life with all my -sufferin’s had any affliction that broke me down as that did. I thought -I _should_ die: the world looked gloomy ‘round me, and I knew I had -nothin’ to expect from master after she was gone, and I was left in the -world friendless and alone. I had seen _some_, yis _many_, good days, -and I don’t believe on arth there was a happier boy than Peter Wheeler; -but when mistress closed her eyes in death, my sorrows begun; and oh! -the tale of ’em will make your heart ache, afore I finish, for all my -hopes, and all my fun, and all my happiness, was buried in mistress’ -grave.” - -A. “Well, Peter, I’m tired of writing, and suppose we adjourn till -to-morrow.” - -P. “Well, Sir, that’ll do I guess—oh! afore I go, have you got any more -Friend of Man?” - -A. “Oh! yes, and something better yet—here’s Thomson and Breckenridge’s -Debate.” - -P. “Is that the same Thomson that the slavery folks drove out of the -country, and the gentleman of property and standing in Boston tried to -tar and feather?” - -A. ☞“YES.” ☜ - -P. “Well, I reckon he must have rowed Breckenridge up Salt River.” ☜ - -A. “You’re right, Peter, and he left him on Dry Dock!!!” - -P. “Good bye, Domine.” - -A. “Good bye, Peter.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II. - -Peter emancipated by his old Master’s Will—but is stolen and sold at - auction, and bid off by GIDEON MOREHOUSE ☜—Hagar tries to buy her - brother back—parting scene—his reception at his new Master’s—sudden - change in fortune—Master’s cruelty—the Muskrat skins—prepare to go - into “the new countries”—start on the journey—“incidents of travel” on - the road—Mr. Sterling, who is a sterling-good man, tries to buy - Peter—gives him a pocket full of “Bungtown coppers”—abuse—story of the - Blue Mountain—Oswego—Mr. Cooper, an Abolitionist—journey’s end—Cayuga - county, New York. - - -_Author._ “Well, Peter, I’ve come up to your house this morning, to -write another chapter in the book; and you can go on with your boots -while I write, and so we’ll kill two birds with one stone.” - -_Peter._ “Well, I felt distressedly when mistress died, and I cried, and -mourned, and wept, night and day. I was now in my eleventh year. While -she lived I worked in the house, but, as soon as she died, I was put -into the field; and so, on her death, I entered into what I call the -field of trouble; and now my story will show ye what stuff men and women -is made of. - -“My master didn’t _own_ me, for I was made free by my old master’s -_will_, who died when I was _little_; and, in his will, he liberated my -mother, who had always been a slave and all her posterity; so that as -soon as old master died, I _was free by law—but pity me if slavery folks -regard law that ever I see_: ☜ for slavery is a tramplin’ on all laws. -Well, arter mother was free, she got a comfortable livin’ till her -death. In that will I was set free, but I lived with master till after -mistress’ death, and then I was _stole_, and in this way. Master got -uneasy and thought he could do better than to stay in that country, and -so he advertised his plantation for sale. It run somethin’ like this, on -the notice he writ: - - ‘FOR SALE, - - ‘A plantation well stocked with oxen, horses, sheep, hogs, - fowls, &c.—and ☞ one young, smart nigger, sound every way. ☜’ - -“You see they put me on the stock-list!! Well, when the day came that I -was to be sold, oh! how I felt! I knew it warn’t _right_, but what could -_I_ do? _I was a black boy._ They sold one thing, and then another, and -bim’bye they made me mount a table, and then the auctioneer cries out:— - -‘Here’s a smart, active, sound, well trained, young nigger—he’s a first -rate body servant, good cook, and all that; now give us a _bid_:’ and -one man bid $50, and another $60; and so they went on. Sister Hagar, she -was four years older than me, come up and got on to the table with me, -(they dassent sell her,) and she began to cry, and sob, and pity me, and -says she, ‘oh Peter, you ain’t agoin’ way off, be ye, ‘mong the wild -Ingens at the west, be ye?’ You see there was some talk, that a man -would buy me, who was a goin’ out into York State, and you know there -was a _sight_ of Ingens here then, and folks was as ‘fraid to go to York -State then, as they be now to go to Texas—and so Hagar put her arms -round my neck, and oh! how she cried; $95 cries out one man; $100 cries -another, and so they kept a bidden’ while Hagar and I kept a cryin’ and -finally, ☞ GIDEON MOREHOUSE ☜ (oh! it fairly makes my blood run cold, to -speak that name, to this day,) well, he bid $110, and took me—master -made him promise to school me three quarters, or he’d not give him a -bill of sale; so he promised to do it, and I was his ☞ Property. ☜ And -that’s all a slaveholder’s word is good for, for he never sent me to -school a day in his life. Now, how could that man get any _right_ to me, -when he bought me as _stolen property_; or how could any body have even -a _legal right_ to me? why no more as I see than you would have to my -cow, if you should buy her of a man that stole her out of my barn. And -yit that’s the way that every slaveholder gits his right to every slave, -for a body must know that a feller _owns himself_. But I gin up long ago -all idee of slavery folks thinkin’ any thing ’bout _law_. ☜ - -“Well, I should think I stood on that table two hours, for I know when I -come down, my eyes ached with cryin’ and my legs with standin’ and tears -run down my feet, and fairly made a puddle there. Sister Hagar, she was -a very lovin’ sister, and she felt distressedly to think her brother was -a goin’ to be sold; and so she went round and borrowed and begged all -the money she could, and that, with what she had afore, made 110 Mexican -dollars, jist what I sold for, and she comes to my new master, and says -she, ‘Sir, I’ve got $110 to buy my brother back agin, and I don’t want -him to go off to the west, and wont you please Sir, be so kind, as sell -me back my brother?’ ‘Away with ye,’ he hollered, ‘I’ll not take short -of 150 silver dollars, and bring me that or nothin’;’ and so Hagar tried -hard to raise so much, but she couldn’t, and oh! how she cried, and come -to me and sobbed, and hung round my neck, and took on dreadfully, and -wouldn’t be pacified; and besides, mother stood by, and see it all, and -felt distressedly, as you know a mother must; but, what could _she_ do? -she was a _black woman_. ☞ Now, how would your mother feel to see you -sold into bondage? Why, arter mistress died, it did seem to me that -master become _a very devil_—he ‘bused me and other folks most -all-killin’ly. He married a fine gal as soon arter mistress’ death as -she would have him; and she had 400 silver dollars, and a good many -other things, and he took her money and went off to Philadelphia, and -sold some of his property, and the rest at this auction I tell on; and -then told her she must leave the premises, and another man come on to -’em, and she had to go; and she and Hagar lived together a good many -year, and got their livin’ by spinnin’ and weavin’, and she was _almost_ -broken-hearted all the time; and when I got way off into the new -countries, I hears from Hagar, that she died _clear_ broken-hearted. -Well, I was sold a Friday, and master was to take me to Morehouse’s a -Sunday; Sunday come, and I was _obliged_ to go. I parted from mother, -and never see her agin, till I heard she was dead; but you must know how -I felt, so I won’t describe it. She felt distressedly, and gin me a good -deal of good advice, but oh! ’twas a sorrowful day for our little -family, I tell ye, Mr. L——. - -“Well, I got to my new master’s, and all was mighty good, and the -children says, “Oh! dis black boy fader bought, and he shall sleep with -me;” and the children most worshipped me, and mistress gin me a great -hunk of gingerbread, and I thought I had the nicest place in the world. -But my joy was soon turned into sorrow. I slept that night on a straw -bed, and nothin’ but an old ragged coverlid over me; and next morning I -didn’t go down to make a fire, for old master always used to do that -himself; and so when I comes down, master scolds at me, and boxes my -ears pretty hard, and says, ‘I didn’t buy you to play the gentleman, you -black son of a bitch—I got ye to work.’ - -“Well, I began to grow home-sick; and when he was cross and abusive, I -used to think of mistress. - -“Master was a cabinet-maker; and so next day, says he, ‘I’m agoin’ to -make you larn the trade,’ and he sets me to planin’ rough cherry boards; -and when it come night, my arms was so lame I couldn’t lift ’em to my -head, pushin’ the jack-plane; and he kept me at this cabinet work till -the first day of May, when I got so I could make a pretty decent -bedstead. I come to live with him the first of March, and now he begins -to fix and git ready for to move out to the new countries. Well, when we -was a packin’ up the tools, I happened to hit a chisel agin’ a hammer, -and dull it a little, and he gets mad, and cuffs me, and thrashes me -’bout the shop, and swears like a pirate. I says, ‘Master, I sartinly -didn’t mean to do it.’ ‘You lie, you black devil, you did,’ he says; -‘and if you say another word, I’ll split your head open with the -broad-axe.’ Well, _I felt bad ’nough_, but said nothin’. He advertised -all his property pretty much, and sold it at vendue; and now we was -nearly ready for a start. Master had promised to let me go and see -sister Hagar, and mother, a few days afore we started; and as he was -gone, mistress told me I might go. So I had liberty, and I detarmined to -use it. I had catched six large muskrats, and had the skins, and thinks -I to myself, what’s mine is _my own_; and so I went up stairs, and wraps -a paper round ’em, and flings ’em out the window, and puts out with them -for town, and sold ’em for a quarter of a dollar a piece. I went Friday; -but I didn’t see mother, for she was gone away, and Sunday I spent -visiting Hagar, and that night I got home. While I was gone they had -found out the skins was a missin’; and soon as I’d got home, I see -somethin’ was to pay; for master looked dreadful _wrothy_ when I come -in, and none of the family said a word, ‘how de,’ nor nothing, only -Lecta, one of the gals, asked me how the folks did, and if I had a good -visit; and she kept a talkin’, and finally, the old lady kind a scowled -at her, (you see the muskrat skins set hard on her stomach,) and -finally, master looked at me cross enough to turn milk sour, and says -he, ‘Nigger, do you know anything ’bout them skins?’ Says I, ‘No, Sir;’ -and I lied, it’s true, but I was _scart_. And says he, ‘you lie, you -black devil.’ So I stuck to it, and kept a stickin’ to it, and he kept a -growing madder, and says he, ‘If you don’t own it, I’ll whip your guts -out.’ So he goes and gits a long whip and bed-cord, and that scart me -worser yit, and I _had to own it_, and I confessed I had the money I got -for ’em, all but a sixpence I had spent for gingerbread; and he searched -my pocket, and took it all away, and _half a dollar besides, that Mary -Brown gin me to remember her by_!! ☜—and then he gin me five or six cuts -over the head, and says he, ‘Now, you dam nigger, if I catch you in -another such lie, I’ll cut your dam hide off on ye;’ and then he drives -me off to bed, without any supper; and he says, ‘If you ain’t down -_airly_ to make a fire, I’ll be up arter ye with a raw hide.’ - -“Well, next day we went to fixin’ two kivered wagons for the journey; -and, arter we’d got all fixed to start, he sends me over to his mother’s -to shell some seed corn, upstairs, in a tub. Well, I hadn’t slept ’nough -long back, and so, in spite of my teeth, I got to sleep in the tub. He -comes over there, and finds me asleep in the tub, and he takes up a -flail staff and hits me over the head, and cussed and swore, and telled -his mother to see I didn’t git to sleep, nor have anything to eat in all -day. Well, arter he’d gone, the old lady called me down, and gin me a -good fat meal, and telled me to go up and shell corn as fast as I could. -Well, I did, and it come night—I got a good supper, and put out for -home; and I’ve always found the women cleverer than the men—they’re -kind’a tender-hearted, ye know. - -“Well, we got ready, and off we started, and I guess ’twas the 9th of -May; and I drove a team of four horses, and it had the _chist_ of tools -and family; and he drove another team, full of other things, and his -brother-in-law, Mr. Abers, who was agoin’ out to larn the trade; and -Abers was mighty good to me. - -“Well, we started for York State, and one night we stayed in Newark, and -I thought ’twas a dreadful handsome place; for you could see New York -and Brooklyn from there, and the waters round New York, that’s the -handsomest waters I ever see, and I have seen hundreds of harbors. - -“Next day we got to a place called Long Cummin, and put up at a Mr. -Starling’s, and he kept a store and tavern, and they was fine folks. In -the evenin’ Mr. Starling comes into the kitchen where I was a sittin’ by -the fire, holdin’ one of the children in my lap, and he slaps me on the -shoulder, and master comes in too, and says he, ‘Morehouse, what will -you take for that boy, cash down? I want him for the store and tavern, -and run arrants, &c.’ Master says, ‘I don’t want to sell him.’—’Well,’ -says Starling, ‘I’ll give you $200 cash in hand.’ Master says, ‘I -wouldn’t take 500 silver dollars for that boy, for I mean to have the -workin’ of that nigger myself.’ ‘Well,’ says Starling, ‘you’d better -take that, or you won’t git anything, for he’ll be running off -bi’m’bye.’ And I tell ye, I begun to think ’bout it myself, about that -time. Well, I went to bed, and thought about it, and wanted to stay with -Starling; and next mornin’ Mrs. Starling comes to master, and says she, -‘I guess you’d better sell that boy to my husband, for he’s jist the boy -we want to git:’ and says I, ‘Master, I wants to stay here, and I wish -you’d sell me to these ’ere folks;’—and with that he up and kicked me, -and says he, ‘If I hear any more of that from _you_, I’ll tie ye up, and -tan your black hide; and now go, and up with the teams.’ Well, when we -got all ready to start, I wanted to stay, and I boohooed and boohooed; -and Mr. Starling says to master, ‘I want your boy to come in the store a -minute;’ and I went in, and he out with a bag of Bungtown coppers, and -gin me a hull pocket full, and says he, ‘Peter, I wish you could live -with me, but you can’t; and you must be a good boy, and when you git to -be a man you’ll see better times, I hope;’ and I cried, and took on -dreadfully, and bellowed jist like a bull; for you know, when a body’s -grieved, it makes a body feel a good deal worse to have a body pity ’em. -I see there was no hope, and I mounted the box, and took the lines, and -driv off; but I felt as bad as though I had been goin’ to my funeral. -Oh! it seemed to me they was all happy there, and they was so kind to -me, and they seemed to be so good, it almost broke my heart: I had every -thing to eat—broiled shad, cake, apple pie, (I used to be a great hand -for apple pie,) rice pudden’ and raisins in it, beefsteak, and all that; -and the children kept a runnin’ round the table, and sayin’, ‘Peter must -have this, and Peter must have that;’ and I kept a thinkin’ as I drove -on, how they all kept flocking round me when we come away, and I cried -’bout it two or three days, and every time master come up, he’d give me -a lick over my ears, ‘cause I was a cryin’. If I should die I couldn’t -think of the next place where we stayed all night. We travelled thirty -miles, and the tavern keeper’s name was Henry Williams. Well, the day -arter, we had a very steep hill to go down, and the leaders run on fast, -and I couldn’t hold ’em, and when we got to the bottom, master hollered, -‘Stop!’ and up he come, and _whipped me dreadfully_, and _kicked me with -a pair of heavy boots_ so hard in my back, I was so lame I couldn’t -hardly walk for three or four days, and everybody asked me what was the -matter. The next place we stopped at, the tavern keeper’s folks was old, -and real clever; and master telled ’em not to let me have any supper but -buttermilk, and that set me to cryin’, and I boohooed a considerable; -and the darter says, ‘Come, mother, let’s give Peter a good supper, and -his master will pay for it, tu;’ and so they did; and as I was a settin’ -by the fire, she axed me, and I telled her all ’bout how I was treated, -and says she, ‘Why don’t you run away, Peter? I wouldn’t stay with sich -a man: I’d run, if I had to stay in the woods.’ Next mornin’ the old man -was mad ’nough when he see the bill for my buttermilk, and swore a good -deal ’bout it. Next day we come to the ‘Beach Woods,’ and ’twas the -roughest road you ever see, and the wheels would go down in the mud up -to the hubs, then up on a log; and he’d make me lift the wheels as hard -as I any way could, and he wouldn’t lift a pound, and stood over me with -his whip, and sung out, ‘_lift, you black devil, lift_.’ And I did lift, -till I could fairly see stars, and go back and forth from one wagon to -t’other, he to whip, and I to lift; and so we kept a tuggin’ through the -day till night. That night we stayed to a _black man’s tavern_; and when -we come up, and see ’twas a black man’s house, master was mad ’nough; -but he couldn’t git any furder that night, and so he had to be an -abolitionist once in his life, any how!!! Well, he didn’t drive that -nigger round, I tell ye, he was on tu good footin’: he owned a farm, and -fine house, and we had as good fare there as any where on the road. - -“The next day the goin’ was so bad we couldn’t git out of the woods, and -we had to stay there all night; and oh! what times we _did_ see; I -lifted and strained till I _was_ dead: and that night we slept in the -wagons—the women took possession of one, and we of t’other; and the -woods was alive with wolves and panthers; and such a howlin’ and -screamin’ you never heard; but we builds up a large fire, and that kept -’em off. We lay on our faces in the wagon, with our rifles loaded, -cocked and primed; and when them ’ere varmints howled, the horses -trembled so the harnesses fairly shook on ’em: but there warn’t any more -sleep there that night, than there would be in that fire. - -“Next day we worried through, and stopped at a house, and got some -breakfast of bears’ meat and hasty pudden’; and it come night, we made -the ‘Blue Mountain;’ and on the top of it was some good folks; we stayed -there one night, and Mr. Cooper, the landlord, come out to the barn, and -axed me if I was _hired_ out to that man, or _belonged_ to him? ‘Well,’ -said he, ‘if you did but know it, you are free now, for you are in a -free state, and it’s agin’ the law to bring a slave from another state -into this; and where be you goin’?’ ‘To Cayuga County,’ says I. ‘Well, -when you git there, du you show him your backsides, and tell him to help -himself.’ - -The next night we stayed in Owego; but I’m afore my story, for goin’ -down the Blue Mountain next day, the leaders run, and I couldn’t hold -’em if I should be shot, and they broke one arm off of the block tongue. -Well, I stopped, and master comes runnin’ up, and he fell on, and struck -me, and mauled me most awfully; and jist then a man come up on -horseback, and says he to master, ‘If you want to _kill_ that boy, why -don’t ye beat his brains out with an axe and done with it—but don’t maul -him so; for _you_ know, and _I_ know, for I see it all myself, that that -boy ain’t able to hold that team, and I shouldn’t a thought it strange -if they had dashed every thing to pieces.’ Well, master was mad ’nough, -for that was a dreadful rebuke; and says he, ‘You’d better make off with -yourself, and mind your own business.’ The man says, ‘I don’t mean to -quarrel with you, and I won’t; but I think ye act more like a _devil_ -than a _man_! ☜ So off he went; and _I love that man yit_! - -Next night we stayed in Owego; and the tavern keeper, a fine man, had a -talk with me arter bed-time; and says he, ‘Peter, your master can’t -touch a hair of your head, and if you want to be free you can, for we’ve -tried that experiment here lately; and we’ve got a good many slaves free -in this way, and they’re doing well. But if you want to run away, why -_run_; but wait awhile, for you are a boy yit, and _there are folks in_ -York State, mean ’nough to catch you and send you back to your master!’ -☜ [3] - -Footnote 3: - - Yes, and there are folks, yes judges and dough faced politicians - enough in _the state now_ who would blast all the hopes that led a - poor slave on from his chains; and when he was just stepping across - the threshold of the temple of freedom, dash him to degradation and - slavery, and pollute that threshold with his blood. Until a fugitive - from tyranny shall be safe in the asylum of the oppressed and the home - of liberty, let us not be told to go to the south. And who are the men - who would, who _have_ done this? Certainly not _philanthropists_; for - the philanthropist loves to make his brother man happy, and will - always _strike_ for his freedom. Certainly not _Christians_; for it - was one of the most explicit enactments of God, when he established - his theocracy upon earth, and incorporated into the code of his - government, that “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant - that is escaped from his master unto thee.” (Deut. xxii. 15.) And can - a man, who respects and regards the laws of heaven, turn traitor to - God, and prostrate, at one fell swoop, all the claims of benevolence - the fugitive slave imposes, when he lifts his fetter-galled arms to - his brother, and cries, “Oh! help me to freedom—to liberty—to heaven?” - -“Well, I parted from that man, and I resolved that I would run away, but -take his advice, and not run till I could clear the coop for good. Well, -we finally got to the end of our journey, and put up at Henry Ludlow’s -house, in Milton township, and county of Cayuga, and State of New York.” - -A. “Well, Peter, I think we can afford to stop writing now, for I’m -fairly tired out. Good bye, Peter.” - -P. “Good bye, Domine.” - - * * * * * - -As I came away from the lowly cottage of Peter Wheeler, and thought of -the toils and barbarities of a life of slavery, and returned to the -sweet and endearing charities of my own quiet home, tenderness subdued -my spirit; and I could not but repeat, with emotions of the deepest -gratitude, those sweet lines of my childhood: - - ‘I was not born a little slave, - To labor in the sun; - And wish I were but in my grave, - And all my labor done.’ - -Oh! I exclaimed as I entered my study, and sat down before a bright, -cheerful fireside, and was greeted with the kind look of an affectionate -wife, as the storm howled over the mountains, Oh! God made man to be -_free_, and he must be a _wretch_, and not a man, who can quench all -this social light forever. I hate not slavery so much for its fetters, -and whips, and starvation, as for the blight and mildew it casts upon -the social and moral condition of man. Oh! enslave not a soul—a -deathless spirit—trample not upon a mind, ’tis an _immortal thing_. Man -perchance may light anew the torch he quenches, but the soul! Oh! -tremble and beware—lay not rude hands upon God’s image there—I thought -of the vast territory that stretches from the Atlantic to the foot of -the Rocky Mountains, and from our Southern border to the heart of our -Capitol, as one mighty altar of Mammon—where so much social light is -sacrificed and blotted from the universe; where so many deathless -spirits, that God made free as the mountain wild bird, are chained down -forever, and I kneeled around my family altar, and I could not help -uttering a prayer from the depths of my soul, for the millions of _God’s -creatures, and my brethren_, who pass lives of loneliness and sorrow in -a world which has been lighted up with the Redeemer’s salvation. What a -scene for man to look at when he prays: A God who loves to make all his -creatures happy! A world which groans because man is a sinner! A man who -loves to make his brother wretched! Oh! thought I, if prayer can reach a -father’s ear to-night, one yoke shall be broken, and one oppressed slave -shall go free. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER III. - -They get into a wild country, “full of all kinds of varmints,” and begin - to build—Peter knocked off of a barn by his master—story of a - rattlesnake charming a child—Peter hews the timber for a new house, - and gets paid in lashes—Tom Ludlow an abolitionist—Peter’s friends all - advise him to run off—the fox-tail company, their expeditions on - Oneida Lake—deer stories—Rotterdam folks—story of a pain’ter—master - pockets Peter’s share of the booty and bounty—the girls of the family - befriend him—a sail on the Lake—Peter is captain, and saves the life - of a young lady who falls overboard, and nearly loses his own—kindly - and generously treated by the young lady’s father, who gives Peter a - splendid suit of clothes worth seventy dollars, and “a good many other - notions”—his master ☞ steals his clothes ☜ and wears them out - himself—Mr. Tucker’s opinion of his character, and Peter’s of his - fate. - - -_Author._ “Well, Peter, you found yourself in a wild country, out there -in Cayuga, I reckon.” - -_Peter._ “You’re right, there’s no mistake ’bout _that_; most every body -lived in loghouses, and the woods was full of wild varmints as they -could hold; well, as soon as we’d got there, we went to buildin’ a log -house; for see master owned a large farm out there, and as soon as we -gits there we goes right on to work; we finally got the house up, and -gits into it, and durin’ the time I suffered _most unaccountably_. There -we went to buildin’ a log barn tu, and we had to notch the logs at both -ends to fay into each other; well, as I was workin’ on ’em, I got one -notched, and we lifted it up breast high to put it on, and he sees ’twas -a _leetle_ tu short, and nobody was to blame, and if any body ’twas -_him_, for he measured it off; but he no sooner sees it, than he drops -his end, and doubles up his fist, and knockes me on the temples, while I -was yit a holdin’ on, and down I went, and the log on me, and oh! how he -_swore_! well, it struck my foot, and smashed it as flat as a pancake, -and in five minutes it swelled up as big as a puffball, and I couldn’t -hardly walk for a week, and yit I had to be on the move all the time, -and he _cussed_ cause I didn’t go faster. When I gits up I couldn’t only -stand on one leg, but he made me stand on it, and lift up that log -breast high, but he didn’t lift a pound, but cried out ‘_lift, lift_, -you black cuss.’ Well, we got the logs up, and when we was a puttin’ the -rafters on, I happened to make a mistake in not gittin’ one on ’em into -the right place, and he knocked me off of the plate, where I was a -standin’ and I and the rafter went a tumblin’ together, down to the -ground. It hurt me distressedly, and I cried, but gits up, and says, -‘master, I thinks you treat me rather.’ ‘Stop your mouth, you black -devil, or I’ll throw these ’ere adz at your head;’ and I _had_ to shet -my mouth, _pretty sudden, tu_, and keep it shet, and he made me lift up -that rafter when I couldn’t hardly stand, and keep on to work; and there -I set on the evesplate a tremblin’ jist like a leaf, and every move he -made, I ’spected he’d hurl me off agin’, and his voice seemed like a -tempest—oh! how savage! But he didn’t knock me _off_ agin’—I had to -thatch that barn in the coldest kind of weather, with nothin’ but ragged -thin clothes on; and I used to git some bloody floggin’s, cause I didn’t -thatch fast enough. - -“But I’ve talked long ’nough ’bout him, and jist for amusement, I’m a -goin’ to tell ye a story ’bout a rattlesnake, and you may put it in the -book, or not, jist as ye like. - -“We lived, as I was a tellin’, in a dreadful wild country, and ’twas -full of all kinds of wild varmints—wolves, and panthers, and bears, was -’mazin plenty, and rattlesnakes mighty thick; and so one day, as we -comes into dinner, mistress seemed to be rather out of humor, and she -sets the baby down on the floor in a pet, and he crawls under the bed, -and begins to be very full of play. He’d laugh, and stick his little -hands out, and draw ’em back, and, as my place in summer was generally -on the outside door, on the sill, I happened to look under the bed, and -there I see a bouncin’ big rattlesnake, stickin’ his head up through a -big crack, and as the child draws his hands back, the snake sticks his -head up agin’. I sings out, with a loud voice, and says I, ‘master, -there’s a rattlesnake under the bed.’ ‘You lie,’ says he; and says I, -‘why master, only jist look for yourself,’ and, at that, mistress runs -to the bed, and snatches up the baby, and it screamed and cried, and -there was no way of pacifyin’ on it in the world. Well, master begins to -think I speaks the truth, and we out with the bed, and up with a board, -and there lay five bouncin’ rattlesnakes, and one on ’em had -twenty-three rattles on him; and so we killed all on ’em. Now that -rattlesnake had _charmed_ that child, and for days and days that child -would cry till you put it down on the floor, and then ‘twould crawl -under the bed to that place, and then ‘twould be still agin’; and it did -seem as though it would never forget that spot, nor snake, and it didn’t -till we got into the new house. - -“Well, this winter we went to scorein’ and hewin’ timber for the new -house, and I followed three scores with a broad-axe, and the timber had -to be _hewed_ tu; and I was _so tired_ many a time, that I wished him -and his broad-axe 5000 miles beyond time. Well, I was a hewin’ one of -the plates, and as ’twas very long, I got one on ’em a leetle windin’ -and master see it, and he comes along and hits me a lick with the sharp -edge of a square right atwixt my eyes, and cut a considerable piece of a -skin so it lopped down on my nose, and on a hewin’ I had to go when the -blood was a runnin’ down my face in streams; and, finally, one of the -men took a winter-green leaf, and stuck it on over the wound, and it -stopped bleedin’ and it healed up in a few days. This warn’t _much_, but -I tell it to show the natur’ of the man; for any body will abuse power, -if they have it to do just as they please. - -“Young Tom Ludlow, one of the scorers, comes up to me, arter master was -gone, and says he, ‘Peter, why in the name of God don’t you show -Morehouse the bottoms of your feet? I’d be hung afore I’d stand it.’ -‘Well, Tom,’ says I, ‘I wants to wait till I knows a little more of the -world, and then I’ll show him the bottoms of my feet _with a greasein’_. -Well, Tom laughed a good deal, and says he, ‘that’s _right_ Pete.’ - -“Tom was a great friend of mine, and he tried to get me to _run off_ for -a good while, and Hen, his brother, he was a good feller, and he tried -tu; and Miss _Sara_, their sister, she was a good soul, and every chance -she got, she’d tell me to run; and Mrs. Ludlow always told me I was a -fool for stayin’ with _sich a brute_; and every time I went there, I -used to git a piece of somethin’ good to eat, that I didn’t get at home; -and Mr. Humphrey’s folks was all the time a tryin’ to git me to run off. -‘Why,’ they say, ‘do you stay there to be beat, and whipt, and starved, -and banged to death? why don’t you run?’ The reply I used to make was, -wait till I git a leetle older, and I’ll clear the coop _for arnest_. - -“Squire Whittlesey, that lived off, ’bout six miles, where I used to go -on arrants, says to me one day, ‘Peter, where did you come from?’ So I -ups and tells him all ’bout my history. Then says he, ‘Peter, can I put -any confidence in you?’ ‘Yis, Sir,’ says I; ‘you needn’t be afeared of -me.’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘you’re free by law, and I advise you to run; but, -wait a while, and don’t run till you can make sure work; and now mind -you don’t go away and tell any body.’ - -“And, finally, enemost every body says ‘_run Pete_, why don’t you run?’ -But thinks I to myself, if I run and don’t make out, ‘twould be better -for me not to run at all, and so I’ll wait, and when I run I’ll run for -sartin. - -“There wasn’t many slaves in that region, but a good many colored folks -lived there, and some on ’em was pretty decent folks tu. Well, we used -to have some _‘musements_ as well as many _sad things_; for arter all -Mr. L——, a’most any situation will let a body have some good things, for -its a pretty hard thing to put out _all a body’s_ joys in God’s world; -and then you see a slave enjoys a good many little kinda comforts that -free people don’t think on; and if a time come when he can git away from -his master, and forgit his troubles, why, he’s a good deal happier than -common folks. Well, we used to have some very bright times. We had a Fox -Tail Company out there of forty-seven men, and Hen Ludlow was captain, -and old boss was lefttenant, and I was private, and when we catched a -fox, then ’twas _hurrah boys_. Sometimes we used to have a good deal of -‘musements over there on Oneida Lake, and we used to have fine sport. We -used to start on a kind of a _fishin’ scrape_, and come out on a kind of -a _hunt_. - -“Round that lake used to be a master place for deer. Oh! how thick they -was! We used to go over and fish in the arternoon and night; and goin’ -cross the lake we’d use these ’ere trolein’ lines; and then we’d fish by -pine torches in the night, and they looked fine in the night over the -smooth water, all a glissenin’; and arter we’d done, we’d sleep on a big -island in the lake, near the outlet—they called it the “Frenchman’s -Island” then, and I guess there was nigh upon fifty acres on it. We’d -start the dogs airly next mornin’ on the north shore, out back of -Rotterdam, and they’d run the deer down into the lake, and then we’d -have hands placed along the shore with skiffs, to put arter ’em into the -water; and we’d have a sight of fun in catchin’ em, arter we’d got ’em -nicely a swimmin’. - -“There was a lawless set of fellows round that ’ere Rotterdam, that’s a -fact; and when they heard our dogs a comin’ to the shore, they’d put out -arter ’em, and if they could git our deer first, they wouldn’t make any -bones on it: but they never got but _one_, for we used to have young -fellers in the skiff that understood their business, and they’d lift ’em -along some, I reckon. - -“But we used to have the finest sport catchin’ fish there you ever -see—eels, shiners, white fish, pikes, and cat-fish, whappers I tell ye, -and salmon, trout, big fellers, and oceans of pumkin-seed, and pickerel, -and bass; and, while I think on it, I must tell ye one leetle scrape -there that warn’t slow. - -“We put up a creek—I guess ’twas Chitining, but I ain’t sartin’—a -spearin’ these ’ere black suckers, and of course we had rifle, powder -and ball along. Well, we had mazin’ luck, and I guess we got three peck -basketfuls; and at last Tom Ludlow says, ‘I swear, Pete, don’t catch any -more.’ - -“‘Twas now ’bout midnight, and we went back to the fire we’d built under -a big shelvin’ rock, and pitched our camp there for the night; and this -was Saturday night, and we begins to cook our fish for supper. Arter -supper, while we was a settin’ there, some laughin’, some tellin’ -stories, some singin’, and some asleep, the gravel begins to fall off of -the ledge over us, and rattle on the leaves. - -“Well, we out and looked up, and see a couple of lights about three -inches apart, like green candles, a rollin’ round; and Hen Ludlow says, -‘That’s a _pain’ter_, by Judas;’ and I says, ‘If that’s a pain’ter, I’ve -got the death weapon here, for if I pinted it at any thing it must -come.’ - -“Bill, a leetle feller about a dozen year old, says he, ‘If I’d a known -this, I wouldn’t a come;’ and so he sets up the dreadfullest bawlin’ you -ever see. - -“Hen says, ‘Peter, can you kill that pain’ter?’ ‘Yis,’ says I, ‘I can; -but you must let me rest my piece ‘cross your shoulder, so I shan’t -goggle, for it’s kind’a stirred my blood to see that feller’s -glisseners;’ and he did: so I took sight, as near as I could, right -atwixt them ’ere two candles, as I calls ’em, and fired, and the candles -was dispersed ’mazin quick. Then we harks, and hears a dreadful rustlin’ -up there on the rock, and bim’bye a most dolefullest dyin’ kind of a -groan; but we hears nothin’ more, and so we goes under the rock to -sleep, glad ’nough to let all kinds of varmints alone, if they’d only -keep their proper distance; but mind you, we didn’t sleep any that -night. Come daylight, we ventured out, and up we goes on to the rock, -and there lay a mortal big pain’ter, as stiff as a poker. I’d hit him -right atwixt his candles, and doused his glims for him, in a hurry. Hen, -says he, ‘Now, Pete, you’ll have money ’nough to buy gingerbread with -for a good while.’ You see there was a big bounty on pain’ters. And I -says, ‘Hen, if my master was as clever to me as your dad is to you, I -should have money ’nough always.’ Hen says, ‘I shall have my part of the -bounty money, and Morehouse ought to let you have your’n.’ - -“Arter this, he takes his hide off, and stuffs it with leaves and moss; -and we gathers up our fish, tackle, and pain’ter, and starts for home, -Sunday mornin’. - -“Well, when we got home, master and mistress was glad ’nough of the -fish, for they had company. Master’s rule was to give me half the fish I -got, (I’ll give the devil his due,) but this time I didn’t git any, and -I felt rather hard ’bout it, tu. Hen and Tom says, ‘Pete, you call up at -our house to-night, and we’ll settle with you for your share of the -bounty for the pain’ter.’ - -“So I goes to master, with my hat under my arm, and asks him, ‘If he’d -please to let me go up to Mr. Ludlow’s?’ ‘What do you want to go up to -Mr. Ludlow’s for?’ ‘To git my bounty money,’ says I. ‘No, you main’t go -up to Ludlow’s; but you may go and bring up my brown mare, and saddle -her; and du you du it quick, tu.’ - -“Well, I goes and does what he says; and he goes up to Mr. Ludlow’s, and -_gits my part of the bounty money, and pockets it up; and that’s all I -got for dousin’ his glims_! ☜ - -“While he was gone, Lecta, my friend, comes, and says, ‘Peter, where’s -father gone?’ - -“‘To git more pain’ter money,’ says I, ‘that I arns for him nights.’ - -“‘I think dad’s got money ’nough,’ says she, ‘without stealin’ your’n, -that you arn nights off on that Oneida Lake.’ - -“I says, with tears in my eyes, ‘I know it’s hard, Lecta; but as long as -master lives, I shan’t git anything but a striped back; and what I arns -nights, he puts in his own pockets.’ - -“‘I know it’s hard, Peter,’ says Lecta; ‘but there’s an end comin’ to -all this; and dad won’t live _always, perhaps_.’ And I’d often heard her -say, arter master had been abusin’ on me, ‘I declare, I shouldn’t be a -bit astonished at all, to see the devil come, and take dad off, -bodily—_so there_.’ - -“Well, while I stood there a cryin’, out comes Julia, and asks me what I -was a cryin’ at? ‘What’s the matter?’ says she. - -“‘Matter ’nough,’ says I, ‘for master takes all I can arn days and -nights, tu.’ - -“‘What?’ says Julia, ‘dad han’t gone up to Ludlow’s arter your pain’ter -money?’ - -“‘Yes he has,’ I says. - -“‘Well,’ says she, ‘it’s no mor’n you can expect from a dumb old hog.’ ☜ - -Now, that speech come from a _darter_, and a pretty smart darter tu, and -it was jist coarse ’nough language to use ’bout master, tu; but Miss -Julia never was in the habit of makin’ coarse speeches. ‘But never mind, -Peter,’ says she, ‘’twill be time to take wheat down to Albany, pretty -soon, and then you’ll git pay for your pain’ter.’ - -“‘Yis,’ says I, ‘and I’ll git pay for a good many other things, tu.’ - -☞ “Now, Mr. L——, I wants to ax you what reason, or right, there is, in -the first place, of stealin’ a man’s body and soul, to make a slave on -him? ☜ _and then for stealin’ his money he gits for killin’ pain’ters, -nights_? - -☞ But the slave ain’t a _man_, and can’t be, a slave is a _thing_; he’s -jist what the slave laws calls him, ☞ a chattel, property, jist like a -_horse_, and like a horse _he can’t own the very straw he sleeps on_. -But, never mind, ☞ there’s a judgment day a comin’ bim’by. ☜ ‘And when -he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them.’ You recollect you -preached from that text a Sunday or two ago, and said, if my memory -sarves me right, that, at the judgment day, God would require of every -slaveholder in the universe, the blood of every soul he bought, and -sold, and owned, _as property_; for ’twas trafficin’ in the image of the -great God Almighty. Ah! that’s true, and I felt so when you said it.” - -A. “Why, Peter, it appears that your master was not only _cruel_, but -_mean_.” - -P. “_Mean_? I guess he was, why, I’ll tell you a story, and when I git -to the end on it, you’ll see what mean, means:— - -“We lived near the Lake, and master had a fine sail boat that cost a -good deal of money, and the young folks round there, that felt pretty -smart, used to sail out in it now and then, and I was captain. One day -there comes four couples, and they wanted to sail out on the Lake with -our gals, and so out we went. Susan Tucker, one of the gals, was a -high-lived thing, and the calkalation was, to go down about three miles, -and the wind was quarterin’ on the larboard side. Well, as I sat on the -starn of the boat, she comes, and sets down on the gunnel, and I says, -‘Susan, that ain’t a very fit place for you to set;’ for the wind was -kind a bafflin’. She replies, ‘I guess there ain’t any danger,’ and -she’d no sooner got the words out of her mouth, than there come a sudden -flaw in the wind, and that made the main boom jibe, and it struck her -overboard, and on we went, for we had a considerable headway,—well, I -let up into the wind, and hollered out, ‘ain’t any body a goin’ to -help?’ and there set her _suitor scart to death_, and all the rest on -’em. Well, I off with all my rags but my pantaloons, and I kept them on -out of modesty till the last thing, and then I slipped out on ’em, like -a black snake out of his skin, and put out. I swam, I guess, ten rods, -and come to where the blubbers come up, and lay on my face, and looked -down into the water to see when she come up; and pretty soon I see her a -comin’, and she come up within a foot I guess of the top, some distance -from me, and sallied away agin. I keep on the look out, and pretty soon -she comes up agin, and as soon as I see, I dove for her, and went down I -guess six feet; and my plan was to catch her round the neck, and when I -did, she seized her left arm round my right shoulder, and hung tight. I -fetched a sudden twist, and brought her across my back, and riz up to -the top of the water, and started for the shore, and I had one arm and -two legs to work with, and she grew heavier and heavier, and I looked to -the shore with watery eyes, I tell you. Finally I got all beat out, and -my stomach was filled with water, and I thought I must give up. Well, -while I stood there a treadin’ water a minute, I thinks I’d better save -myself and let her go, and so not both be drowned. I hated to, but I -shook her off my back, and she hung tight to my shoulder, and that -brought me on my side; and I kept one arm a goin’ to keep us up, and -cast my eyes ashore, and gin up that we must go down, and jist that -minute a young man come swimmin’ along, and sings out, ‘Pete, where is -she?’ and I answers, as well as I could, for I was now a sinkin’, and -she was out of sight of him, and says, ‘under me,’ and he dove, and -catched her under his arm, and with such force, it broke her loose from -me, and off he put for the shore; and I gin up that _I_ must sink, and -so down I begins to go, and I recollect I felt kind a happy that Susan -was safe, if _I_ was a goin’ to die, for I loved her, and jist then -another man come along, and hollers out, ‘Pete, give me hold of your -hand.’ I couldn’t speak, but I hears him, and I knew ’nough to reach out -my hand, and he took hold on it, and by some means, or other, foucht me -on to his back out of the water, and finally got me safe ashore: and -sure ’nough, there we all was, and the first thing I knew, he run his -finger down my throat, and that made me fling up Jonah, and when I had -hove up ’bout a gallon of water, I begins to feel like Peter agin, and I -sees I was as naked as an eel, and I set still in the sand. Well, I -looked out on the Lake, and there was the boat, and this feller, Susan’s -suitor, was a rale goslin’, and so scart, that he couldn’t even jump -into the water arter his lady love; and there she was a rockin’ in the -troughs, (_i.e._ the boat,) and one of these same young men that came -out arter us, swum out for her, and catched hold of her bow chain, and -towed her ashore; and I gits my clothes out, for up to this time I felt -egregious streaked, all stark naked there, and I on with my clothes, and -goes to Susan, and she was a comin’ tu, and as soon as she could speak, -she says, ‘where’s Peter?’ I says, ‘I’m here, Miss Susan;’ and she says, -‘and so am I, and if it hadn’t a been for you, I should have been in the -bottom of that Lake.” And while we was a talkin’ there, who should come -up but her father, and he says, ‘my dear child how happened all this?’ - -“‘Pa,’ says she, ‘it all happened through my carelessness; Peter warned -me of my danger, but I didn’t mind him, and I fell off.’ - -“‘Who saved you out of the water?’ says Mr. Tucker; ‘that poor black boy -there, that’s whipped and starved and abused so,’ says Susan; then she -turns round to me, still cryin,’ and says ‘Peter, have you hurt you -much, my dear fellow?” - -“‘No, not much, I guess, Miss Susan,’ says I. Mr. Tucker then says, -‘come darter, can you walk as fur as the carriage?’ - -“‘Yes, Sir,’ says she, ‘and Peter must go along with us, tu—come Peter, -come along up to our house.’ ‘Yes, Peter, come along,’ says Mr. Tucker, -a cryin’. ‘Yes, Sir,’ says I, as soon ever as I’ve locked the boat;’ and -he says, ‘if you’ll _run_, I’ll wait for you.’ Well, I did run, and lock -the boat, and put the key in my pocket, and come back to the carriage, -and says he, ‘Git in, Peter.’ - -“‘No, Sir,’ says I, ‘I’ll _walk_.’ - -“‘Oh! Pa,’ says Susan, ‘have Peter git in, I want him with us;’ and, -finally, I got in, and then Mr. Tucker drives on up to his house. When -we got opposite master’s, Mr. Tucker calls out to him, and says, ‘I want -to take your boy up to my house a leetle while;’ and he hollered out -‘what’s the matter?’ So Mr. Tucker tells him all ’bout it; and says he, - -“‘Nigger, where’s the boat?’ - -“‘Locked, Sir.’ - -“‘Where’s the key?’ - -“‘In my pocket, Sir.’ - -“‘Let’s have it!’ - -“So I handed it out, and when all on us felt so kind’a tender, and his -speakin’ _so cross_, and not carein’ anything for it, oh! it did seem -that he was worse than ever. ☜ - -“‘Go,’ says he, ‘but be back in season.’ Oh! how stern! Well, we comes -to Mr. Tucker’s house, and Mrs. Tucker cried and wrung her hands in -agony; and Rebecca, her sister, cried and screamed, and Edwin, her -brother, made a dreadful _adoo_; and Susan says, ‘why, don’t be -frightened so, for I ain’t hurt any;’ and so we sat down and told all -about it, and talked a good while, and Susan said, ‘but I shall always -remember that I owe my life to Peter, and he’s my noble friend.’ Well, -pretty soon supper was ready; we all sot down, I ‘mong the rest, -although I was a _poor black outcast_—and Susan, she sat down and -drinked a cup of tea, and they wanted her to go to bed, but she -wouldn’t, and she axed me if I wouldn’t have _this_, and if I wouldn’t -have _that_; and, in fact, the whole family seemed to feel grateful, and -I think I never enjoyed myself better than I did at that table. I didn’t -think so much of the _victuals_ as I did of the _folks_. - -“Well, arter supper Mrs. Tucker says, ‘well, Susan, what you goin’ to -_give Peter_?’ - -“‘Why, Ma, anything that Pa will let me.’ ‘Pa says anything, my dear, -that Peter wants out of the store, you may give him.’ - -“So Pa hands Susan the key and says, ‘go into the store and give him a -good handkerchief, and I’ll be in by that time.’ So we went in, and she -gin me the handkercher, and then Mr. Tucker come in, and took down two -pieces of handsome English broad-cloths,—oh! how they shone! one piece -was green, and t’other was blue, and says he, ‘Peter, you may have a -suit off of either of them pieces you like best, from head to foot.’ - -“I says, ‘I can’t pay for ’em, and master would _thrash me_, if he knew -I bought ’em.’ - -“Mr. Tucker says, ‘you’ve paid for ’em already, and as much agin more;’ -and I recollect he said some Bible varse, ‘as ye did it unto one of the -least of mine, ye did it unto me.’ And so he measured off two and a half -yards of blue for a coat, and one and a quarter green for pantaloons, -and picks me out a handsome vest pattern, and three and a half yards of -fine Holland linen for a shirt, and threw in the trimmin’s—and then -picks me out a beaver hat, marked $7 50—then a pair of shoes, with -buckles, and turns round and says, ‘now, Susan, you take these things up -to the house;’ and then he gin me a new handsome French crown, and -filled all my pockets with raisins, and so we went into the house, and -Mrs. Tucker measures me; and Mr. Tucker, says he, ‘now, Peter, you’d -better run home, and say nothin’ to master and mistress, but come up -here next Sunday morning, airly.’ - -“And so I puts out for home, and next day Susan sends for ‘Lecta and -Polly, our gals, and they stayed there three days, and had what I calls -an abolition meetin’; and, arter the old folks was gone to bed one -night, ‘Lecta comes to me and says, ‘Peter, you’ve got a dreadful -handsome suit made:’ and Polly says, ‘yis, that’s what we’ve been up to -Mr. Tucker’s so long about,—we’ve got ’em all done, and a fine Holland -shirt for you, all ruffled off for you round the bosom and wristbands, -and we want to go up to Ingen Fields to meetin’, next Sunday, and I’ll -ask father to let you drive the iron grays for us. - -“Well, Sunday comes, and I goes and tackles up the grays and carriage, -and ’twas a genteel establishment, and drove up to the door, and ‘Lecta -tells me to drive up to Mr. Tucker’s, and change my clothes, and leave -my old ones up there; and so I drove up to Mr. Tucker’s in a hurry, and -went in, and Mrs. Tucker, says she, ‘now Peter, wash your hands and -feet, and face clean;’ and I did. And Mr. Tucker says, ‘now, Peter, comb -your hair;’ and I did. Well, he gin me a comb, and so I combed it as -well as I could, for _’twas all knots_; and then Mrs. Tucker opened the -bedroom door, and says she ‘Peter, now go in there and dress yourself;” -and I did; and out I come, and she made me put on a pair of -clock-stockin’s, and she put a white cravat round my neck; and Mr. -Tucker says, ‘now, Peter, stand afore the glass;’ and I did; and then I -got my beaver on, and there I stood afore the glass, and strutted like a -crow in a gutter, and turned one way and then t’other, and twisted one -way and then t’other, and I tell you I felt fine; and Susan says, ‘Pa, -there’s one thing we’ve forgot.’ So she runs into the store and bring -out a pair of black silk gloves, and hands ’em to me, and says, ‘be -careful on ’em, won’t you, Peter.’ Then I was fixed out, and ’twas the -finest suit I ever had. It cost above seventy dollars. - -“Well, I took the gals in; and drove over, and took our gals in, and off -we started for Ingen Fields. The old folks had gone on afore us in the -gig, and we come up and passed ’em, and _if master didn’t stare at me, -I’ll give up_. - -“Arter we got there, I hitches my horses, and starts, and walks along to -the ‘black pew,’ ☜ as straight as a candle; and I out with my white -handkercher, and wipes the seat off, and down I sot; and I tell you, -_there warn’t any crook in my back that day_. - -“And master set, and viewed me from head to foot, all day; and I don’t -b’lieve he heard one single bit of the sarmint all day—he seemed to be -thunderstruck. Well, arter meetin’ we drove home, and I shifts my -clothes, and puts the team out, and comes into the house; and master -gives me a dreadful cross look, and says, ‘Nigger, where did you git -them clothes?’ - -“‘Mr. Tucker gin ’em to me, Sir,’ I says. - -“‘What did Mr. Tucker give ’em to you for?’ he says, in rage. - -“‘For savin’ Susan’s life, Sir,’ I answers. - -“‘_Susan’s life?_ you _devil_! What right has Mr. Tucker got to give -_you such_ a suit of clothes, without my liberty? Hand me that coat.’ -And I did, but I felt bad. - -“Well, he took it, and held it out, and says he, ‘Why, nigger, that’s a -better coat than I ever had on my back, _you cuss—you_;’ and at that he -took it, and flung it on the floor in rage. I picks it up, and hands it -to ‘Lecta, and she puts it in her chist. I had the pleasure of wearing -that coat one Sunday more, and then ☞ he took it, and wore it out -himself! ☜ - -“The gals says, ‘Why, father, _how can_ you take away that coat?’ - -“‘Shet _your_ heads, or you’ll git a tunin’.’ - -“‘Well, father, but how _’twill look_—and what will _Mr. Tucker’s folks -think of you_?’ - -“‘Shet your dam heads, or I’ll take away the rest of his clothes; for -he’s a struttin’ about here as big as a meetin’ house. I’ll do as I -please with my _nigger’s things_! ☞ He’s my property!! ☜ It’s a dam pity -if _my nigger’s things_ don’t belong to me!’[4] ☜ - -Footnote 4: - - And with the same propriety, might he say, that his nigger’s _soul_ - belonged to him; or, if he possessed salvation by Christ, that his - title to heaven belonged to him. With such premises, he could - logically prove that he could _kill_ his slave, and do no wrong, as he - would innocently kill his ox, or other property. Here we see the - legitimate and necessary inference of this barbarous, inhuman and - wicked position, that it is right, under certain circumstances, to - _own property in man_. A man is not _safe_, as long as he acknowledges - this right; for if he believes it _ever_ can exist, he will _exercise_ - it as soon as circumstances are favorable, and become one of the most - barbarous and abandoned of slaveholders in an hour.] - -“Now, Mr. L——, he robbed me of _myself_, then of my _money_, and then of -my _clothes_, that a good man gin me for savin’ his darter’s life. Now -you see what _mean, means_. - -“One day, arter this, I met Mr. Tucker in the road, and says he, ‘Well, -Peter, how do you git along?’ ‘Oh! Sir, well ’nough; only master has -took my clothes away you gin me, and is a wearin’ them out himself.’ - -“‘What!’ says he, ‘not them clothes I gin you?’ - -“‘Oh! yis, Sir; and I thinks it’s cruel to me, and insultin’ you most -distressedly.’ - -“‘Well,’ said Mr. Tucker, ‘he ought to be hung up by the tongue atwixt -the heavens and ’arth, till he is _dead_, DEAD, DEAD, without any mercy -from the Lord or the devil.’” ☜ - -A. “Well, Peter, I’ve seen cruel and _mean_ things, but that is without -exception the meanest thing I ever heard of in my life. Where do you -suppose the wretch has gone to, Peter?” - -P. “He has gone unto the presence of a God, who hates oppression and -oppressors with all his heart; and _God will take care of_ him, I tell -you, and _he’ll do it right tu_.” - -A. “Yes, Peter, such men are rebels against Jehovah’s government, and -it’s absolutely necessary for God to punish them, unless they reform; -it’s as necessary for God to send such men to hell in the world to come, -as it is for us to bang a murderer, or put him in prison. And, Peter, -which had you rather be, the slaveholder or the slave?” - -P. “Domine, I’d rather be the _most miserablest slave in the univarse_, -here and herearter, than to be the _best slaveholder_ in creation; for I -wouldn’t, under any circumstances, _own a human bein’_. The sin lies -more in the ownin’ property in a human bein’, than in the ‘busin’ on -’em, ‘cordin’ to my way of thinkin’.” - -A. “You’re _right_, Peter; and there will be no progress made in the -destruction of slavery, until you destroy the right of property in -man!!” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - -An affray in digging a cellar—Peter sick of a typhus fever nine - months—the kindness of “the gals”—physician’s bill—a methodist - preacher, and a leg of tain’ted mutton—“_master shoots arter him_” - _with a rifle!!_—a bear story—where the skin went to—a glance at - religious operations in that region—“a camp meeting”—Peter tied up in - the woods in the night, and “expects to be eat up by all kinds of wild - varmints”—master a drunkard—owns a still—abuses his family—a story of - blood, and stripes, and groans, and cries—Peter finds ‘Lecta a friend - in need—expects to be killed—Abers intercedes for him, and “makes it - his business”—Mrs. Abers pours oil into Peter’s wounds—Peter goes - back, and is better treated a little while—master tries to stab him - with a pitchfork, and Peter nearly kills him in self-defence—tries the - rifle and swears he will end Peter’s existence now—but the ball don’t - hit—the crisis comes, and that night Peter swears to be free or die in - the cause. - - -_Author._ “I’ve come up again, Peter, to go on with our story, and you -can drive the peg while I drive the quill.” - -_Peter._ “I had as many friends in that region as about any other man, I -reckon, and if it hadn’t been for _one man_, I should have got along -very well; but oh! how cruel master was. As I was a tellin’ on you, we -went on buildin’ the frame house, and in diggin’ the cellar. I was a -holdin’ the scraper and master was drivin’, and a root catched the -scraper and jerked me over under the horse’s heels, and he took the but -end of his whip, and mauled me over the head; and says I, ‘master, I -hold the scraper as well as I can, and I wish you’d git somebody that’s -stronger than me, to do it.’ - -“‘Come up here,’ says he, as he jumps up out of the cellar, with a -halter in his hand, ‘and I’ll give you somebody that’s strong ’nough for -you.’ Well, I got up, and he makes me strip, and hug an apple tree, and -then ties me round it, and whips me with his ox-goad, while I was stark -naked, _till he’d cut a good many gashes in my flesh, and the blood run -down my heels in streams_; and then he unties me, and _kicks me down -into the cellar_ to hold scraper agin. ☜ - -“At that, one of his hired men, who was a shovelin’, says, ‘Morehouse, -you are too savage, to use your boy so, I swear!!’ Well, one word -brought on another, till master orders him off of his premises. ‘Out of -the cellar,’ says he, in a rage, for jist so soon as he reproved him, he -biled like a pot, for you know if a body’s doin’ wrong, it makes ’em mad -to be told on it. Well, out he got, and says he, as he jumps out on the -bank, ‘now, Morehouse, if you are _a man_, come out here tu.’ But master -darn’t do that, for he was a small man. ‘Then pay me!’ and master says, -‘I’ll be dam’d if I do.’ ‘Well,’ says the man, ‘I’ll put you in a way to -pay me afore night.’ So it comes night, master rides up and pays him, -and tries to _hire him agin_; but says he, ‘I wouldn’t work for sich a -barbarous wretch, if you’d give me fifty dollars a day.’[5] - -Footnote 5: - - There are certain _principles_, developed in these facts, which the - reader ought to notice. Abolitionists meet with opposition from the - slaveholder, and his abettors, for the same reason that this man was - cursed by the tyrant who had just lashed Peter! He was angry with the - man, _because he told him the truth_. It excited all the malignity of - a demon in his breast to be rebuked. He knew he was doing _wrong_, and - _conscience_ made the reproof a barbed arrow to his soul, and he raved - _because his pride was mortified_, and he felt disturbed.—So is it - now! The Abolitionists are opposed for the same reason.—They are the - first body of men in America, who have depicted slavery—they have - dissected the fiendish monster, and brought down the contempt of the - world, who love freedom, upon the head of the southern slaveholder. - They have poured light, like a stream of fire, upon the whole South, - and disturbed the consciences of the buyers and sellers of souls. And - we see the malignity of hell itself boiling out of the southern mouth, - and southern press; and politicians and religious (?) editors, and - ministers of the gospel, are all _pressed_ into the vile and low-lived - business of bolstering up tyrants upon their unholy thrones, and - propping up the darkest, and blackest system of oppression that ever - existed on earth. These men have not been needed _before_, their help - was not called for;—for nothing was being done to break down slavery. - The Colonization Society, met with a different fate at the South, and - for this reason it was sustained by all slaveholders who knew the - policy. It was the best friend the slaveholder ever had—it kept the - consciences of the tyrants quiet—it was a healing plaster just large - enough for the sore.—And some of the most distinguished slaveholders - in the United States, some of them officers of the American - Colonization Society, and the most liberal donors of its funds, told - the author of this note, that, _they considered the Society the - firmest support slavery had in the world_, for ‘twould keep the North - and the South quiet about _their peculiar institutions_. “The - Society,” said one of them, who was at the time a member of the United - States Senate, “_has carried away about three thousand or four - thousand niggers in twenty years, and the increase has been over half - a million. Now, Sir, I can afford, on selfish principles, to give ten - thousand dollars a year to that Society, rather than have it go down; - for when it goes down, slavery will go with it, and it will go down - just as soon as it loses the confidence of the people of the - North!!!!!!!_ ☜ Very good reason why slaveholders should support - Colonization!!!!!! There is not the fain’test doubt in creation, that - the great mass of the South wish slavery, under the circumstances, to - continue; and they make war against the Abolitionists because they - want it to stop, and are doing all they can to put it down; (for this - is the definition of an Abolitionist;) just as the drunkard makes war - upon the Temperance Reformation, because it strikes a blow at his - idol; just as infidels oppose revivals, because they disturb their - consciences, and make infidelity contemptible. Now, I hesitate not to - say, that no system of principles, or measures, will ever do away with - slavery, except that system which meets with the determined, and - combined opposition of slaveholders, and those who are interested in - sustaining the system. For the system that destroys slavery, must aim - a deadly blow at selfishness, and this will excite malignity, and this - will show itself out in the gall that is poured upon Abolitionists, - from the cowardly and sophistical apologies of Pro-Slavery Princeton - Divines, down to the hard, but not convincing arguments of brick-bats. - - The truth is, that the South oppose Abolition, not because “it has put - back emancipation,” as the New York Observer says,—for, in that case, - its champions would be found south of “Mason’s and Dixon’s line,”—but, - because Abolition has a direct, and decided, and tremendous influence - in hurling the system of heathenish, and cruel oppression to the - ground. _But there are some, a noble, an immortal few, hearts in the - South_ who are waiting for the consolation of Africa, who bless God - for every prayer we offer, and for every convert we gain. And the - prayers of every man, and woman, in the slaveholding states, who longs - for the freedom of the slave, follow the Abolitionists, and contribute - to the spread and triumph of our principles. - -“By being exposed, and abused, and whipped, and almost starved and -frozen to death, through the winter, in the spring I was took down with -the typhus fever, and lay on a bed of straw, behind the back kitchen -door, six months, almost dead; and the doctor come to see me every day, -and finally says he to master, ‘if you want that boy to git well, you -must give him a decenter place to lay than all that comes tu, for -’tain’t fit for a sick dog.’ - -“So the gals moved me up stairs, in their arms, and there I lay. They -was kind to me durin’ my sickness, but master was very indifferent, and -didn’t seem to care whether I lived or died. Well, the gals, one -pleasant day in the fall, took me in their arms, and carried me down -stairs, and put me in a little baby wagon, and drew me ’bout twenty rods -and back, and then took me up stairs agin’, oh! how tired I was, and -they did that every day, till I got so I could walk about, and I shall -always remember it in ’em, tu. - -“Well, in ’bout two months arter this, I got so I could work a leetle, -and one day Doctor Walker comes in with his bill of seventy odd dollars; -and master says he, ‘_I wish the dam_ _nigger had died, and then I -shouldn’t had this money to pay._’ Master payed him off arter some -_jawing_; but oh! how savage master was to me arter this![6] - -Footnote 6: - - One would think that so long a time for reflection, would have - softened the poor tyrant’s heart—but it is no easy matter to eradicate - the tyranny which is fostered in the bosom of the possessor of - irresponsible power. - -“Well, next Sunday a Methodist preacher comes along, and was agoin’ to -preach at Ingen Fields. And so he and his wife come down to dine with -us, and we cooked a leg of mutton we had on hand, for dinner, and got it -on the table, and all sets down, and master begins to cut it, and come -tu, ’twas distressedly tain’ted round the bone, and smelled bad. - -“Well, master orders it off the table; and I goes and knocks over five -chickens, and dresses ’em, and friccazeed them in a hurry, and got ’em -on to the table; and I guess we didn’t hinder ’em mor’n half an hour. - -“Well, nobody could stand the mutton, it stunk so; but master tells the -folks to give me nothin’ else to eat; and I eat, and eat away upon it, -day after day, as long as I could; and then I’d tear off bits, and hide -’em in my bosom, and carry ’em out, and fling ’em away, to git rid on -it; and one night, when it stunk so bad it fairly knocked me down, I -takes the _whole frame_ and leaves for the lot with it, and buries it; -and thinks, says I, _now_ the old mutton leg won’t trouble me any -more.—— ☞ But it happened, that a few days arter this, that we was -ploughin’ that lot, and he was holdin’ the plough; and fust he knows, up -comes the mutton leg, and fust he looks at it, and then at me, and takes -it up, and scrapes the dirt off on it—and oh! how he biled!—and says he, -‘You black devil, what did you hide that mutton for?’ And he took the -whip out of my hand, and cut me with it a few times; and says I, -‘Master, I won’t stand this;’ and off I run towards the house, and he -arter, as fast as we could clip it; and he into the house and gits the -rifle, and I see it, and oh! how I cleared the coop into the lots; and -as I was a goin’ over a knoll, he let strip arter me, and I hears the -ball whistle over my head. I tell ye, how it come!—and I scart enemost -to death. - -“Well, I wanders round a while, my heart a pittepattin’ all the time, -and finally, comes back to the house. But I see him a comin’ with the -rifle agin’ as I got into the lot, and I fled for shelter into the shell -of an old hemlock-tree left standin’, (you’ve seen such arter a lot is -burnt,) and he see me, and he let strip agin’, and whiz went the ball -through the old shell, about a foot over my head, for I’d squat down, -and if I hadn’t he’d a fixed me out as stiff as a maggot. He comes up, -and sings out, ‘You dead, nigger?’ ‘Yis, Sir.’ - -“‘Well, what do ye speak for, then, you black cuss?’ Then he catches -hold on me, and drags me out, and beats me with a club, till _I was dead -for arnest, enemost_; and then, lookin’ at the hole in the tree, he -turns to me, lyin’ on the ground, and says, ‘Next time I’ll bore a hole -through _you_, you black son of a bitch. Now drive that team, and -straight, tu, or you’ll catch a junk of lead into you.’ - -“Well, I hobbled along, and we ploughed all day; and come night, I -boohooed and cried a good deal, and the children gits round me, and -asks, ‘What’s the matter, Peter?’ I tells ’em, ‘Master’s been a poundin’ -on me, and then he shot arter me, and I don’t know what he will do -next.’ Julia speaks, and says, ‘I declare it’s a wonder the devil don’t -come and take father off.’ - -“He orders the family not to give me any supper; but arter he’d gone to -bed, the gals comes along, and one on ’em treads on my toe, and gin me -the wink, and I know’d what it meant; and so I goes into the wood-house, -and finds a good supper laid on a beam, where I’d got many a good bite; -and went off to bed with a heavy heart. - -“But, as I hate to be a tellin’ bloody stories all the time, I’ll jist -give you a short one ’bout a bear; for I was as mighty a hand for bears -as ever ye see. - -“One night I went along arter my cows into the woods, a whistlin’ and a -singin’ along, with the rifle on my shoulder, a listenin’ for my -cow-bell, but couldn’t hear nothing on it; and so on I goes a good ways, -and hears nothin’ yit; and I’d hearn old-fashioned people say, you must -clap your ear down on the ground to hear your cow-bell, and I did, and I -hears it away towards the house; and so for home I starts; and it gits -to be kind’a duskish; and the first thing I hears or sees, was right -afore me, a great _big black bear_, that riz right up out of the -scrub-oaks, and stood on his hind feet; and I was so scart, I didn’t -know how to manage the business; and there I stood atwixt two evils; one -way I was ‘fraid of the dark, and t’other I was ‘fraid of the bear; and -finally, I starts and runs from him, and he jist then down on his legs -and put arter me. Well, I turns round and faces him, and he riz up on -his hind feet agin’, and kind’a growled. Atwixt me and him, there was a -small black oak staddle, and thinks I to myself, if I can git to that, I -can hold my gun steady ’nough to shoot him; but then I was afeard I -shouldn’t _kill him_; and if I didn’t he’d _kill me_. However, I starts -for the staddle; and he kind’a growled, and wiggled his short tail, and -seemed to be tickled to think I was a comin’ towards him. As quick as I -got up to the staddle, I cocked my piece, and aimed right at his -brisket, atwixt his fore legs, as near as I could, and fired—_and run_; -and never looked behind me, to see whether I’d killed my adversary or -not, and put for the house as fast I could. Well, up I come to the -house, so short-winded, that I puffed and blowed like a steamboat; and -old master says he, ‘What you shot, nigger?’ - -“‘A bear, Sir.’ - -“‘Where is he?’ - -“‘In the scrub-oaks, out there; and I b’lieve I _killed_ him, tu.’ - -“‘Killed him? you black puppy; go and git t’other rifle, and load it.’ -And I goes. ‘Now,’ says he, ‘start back for your bear; and if you han’t -shot any, I’ll shoot _you_.’ And so back I goes; and master follows -along behind me, half scared to pieces, for fear my _dead_ bear would -bite him. - -Well, come to the scrub-oaks, there lay my bear a strugglin’, with his -fore-paws hold on a scrub-oak, a twistin’ it round and round, and _then_ -master steps up, as resolute as an Ingen warrior, to shoot him, and he -first made me fire into his head, and then he fired into his heart; and -when we’d killed him _dead_, we draws him to the house and skins him; -and I think ’twas the fattest bear I ever see in all my life. - -Well, that fall master went to Philadelphia, and he takes that skin with -five others I’d killed, that he’d already got the premium on, and sold -’em in Philadelphia—and in all, they come to over one hundred dollars, -bounty, skins, and all, to say nothin’ at all ’bout _meat_; and he never -gin me a Bungtown copper out of the whole. _No_, not enough to buy a -pinch of snuff, or a chew of tobacco.”[7] - -Footnote 7: - - Another exemplification of the abominable doctrine of the right of - property in man! Concede this right, and his master did right, and - Peter ought not to complain. - -A. “Were there any churches in that region?” - -P. “Yis, Sir; there was two of our gals belonged to the Methodist -meetin’—Julia and Polly, and I used to have to drive them to meetin’ -every other Sunday, to a place about four or five miles off, towards -Auburn, called Plane Hill. Every season we used to have a Camp meetin’, -at what’s called Scipio Plains, and used to have to go and strike a tent -and carry down the family, and wait on ’em till the meetin’ was over. -Well, the most I can recollect about them meetin’s was, they used to -make a despod hollerin’ and shoutin’. Some would sing ‘glory -hallelujah,’ and ‘amen,’ and some, ‘I can see Jesus Christ, I see him a -comin’, I see him a comin’,’ and I was jist fool enough to look and see -if I could see him, but I never see anything. - -“One Camp meetin’ we had I went to, and paid strict ‘tention, and it -seemed to me that a part of the sarmint was aimed at me, _straight_, but -I was so ignorant that I didn’t take the sense on it. In what they calls -their ‘prayin’ circles,’ there was a colored man—quite an old man, but -mighty good, for he made a great prayer; and while he prayed, a good -many old and young cried, and shed a good many tears. Well, seein’ them -cry, made me cry, I ‘spose, for I can’t assign any other reason; and -this colored man see me cryin’ and he comes to me and says he, ‘my son, -do you want religion?’ ‘Yis, Sir,’ says I, ‘what is religion?’ He speaks -in a kind of a broken language, and says, ‘Religion is to do as we -do—sing and shout and pray, and call on God; and don’t you want us to -pray for you?’ - -“‘Yis, Sir,’ says I, ‘I wants every body to pray for me.’ - -“So he speaks to a minister, and says I wants to be prayed for; and so -they gits into a ring, and crowds round me like a flock of sheep round a -man that’s got a salt dish. I don’t want to make a _wrong comparison_, -but I can’t think of nothin’ else so near like it. Then this white -minister tells me I must git down on my knees; and so down I gits, and -they begins to pray, and shout, and sing, and clap their hands, and I -was scart, and looked two or three times to git a chance to cut stick -and be off, but I couldn’t find a place to git out of the ring; and I -tell ye, thinks says I, _‘if this is religion, I’ve got ’nough on it, -and I’ll be off_.’ They prayed God would send his ‘_power_,’ and convart -that ’ere colored boy; and so while they was shoutin’ right down hard -for me, one of our gals, Polly, I believe, gits what they calls ‘the -power,’ and they kind’a left me and went over to her; but some on ’em -stuck by me, but they didn’t seem _nigh so thick_, and I was right glad -of that, I tell ye, and as quick as I got a chance, I got out of the -ring, and made tracks, and cut like a white head; and when I got a goin’ -I didn’t stop till I got down to the horses, and that was half a mile; -and when I got there, the old woman that kept the tavern (she knew me) -says, ‘why, Peter! what’s the matter?’ - -“‘Matter,’ says I ‘matter enough; they got me into a ring up there, and -scart me half to pieces, and I made off, I tell ye; and if scarein’ -folks makes ’em religious, I’ll be a good Christian arter this as any on -’em, for they scart me _like tarnation_.’ Well, goin’ home that night, -the gals talked to me a good deal ’bout religion. They used to be a good -deal more religiouser ’bout Camp meetin’ times than any other times, and -they’d try to git me to pray, and larn me how; and come up into my -chamber arter the old folks had gone to bed, to tell me ’bout religion, -and all that; and so, arter this meetin’ I used to pray some, and when I -went arter my cows, I’d git behind some big tree, and pray as well as I -knew how, and so every time I got a chance, I’d keep it up, for six or -seven months, and then I’d git all over it, and I could swear as bad as -ever; and by this time the gals had got kind’a cold, and didn’t say much -’bout religion; and that’s the history of all my religion then. And -arter this _scare_ I tell on, I didn’t have any more religious fits very -soon. - -“Prayin’ in the woods makes me think of bein’ _tied up_ there. Once -master gits mad with me, cause I didn’t plane cherry boards ’nough, and -he takes me out into the woods, and ties me up, ’bout dark, and says he, -‘now stay there, you black devil, till mornin’.’ Well, _he’d whipped me -raw afore this_, and there ’twas dark as pitch, and the woods full of -all kinds of live varmints,—a sore back, and enemost starved; and I tell -ye if I didn’t scream jist like a good fellow, I’ll give up. I hollered -jist as loud as I could bawl, and there I stayed a good while, afeared -of bein’ eat up by varmints every minute. Finally, a man who hears me, -comes up and says, ‘whose there?’ - -“‘Peter,’ says I. - -“‘And what’s the matter?’ - -“‘Matter ’nough! Master’s _whipped me raw_, and enemost starved me, and -tied me up, and is a goin’ to keep me here all night.’ - -“‘No, he ain’t ‘nother.’ And at that he out with a big jack-knife, and -cut the rope; and I says, ‘Thank’ee, Sir;’ and off he went. But I warn’t -much better off now, for I darn’t go to the house, for there I should -git it worse yit; and so I went to the fence, so if any wild thing come -arter me, I could be _on the move_; and there I stood, and hollered, and -bawled, and screamed, till I thought it must be near mornin’; and -finally, one of the gals comes out to untie me; and if ever I was glad -to see a woman’s face, ’twas then; but if there’d been fifty wild beasts -within a mile on me, they’d been so scart by my bawlin’, that they’d -made tracks t’other way. - -“But up to ’bout this time, I used to have some sunny days, when I’d -enjoy myself pretty well. But I don’t think that for five years, my -wounds, of his make, fairly healed up, afore he tore ’em open agin’ with -an ox-goad, or cat-o’-nine-tails, and made ’em bleed agin’. But I’ve not -told you the worst part of the story yit. Master got to be more savage -than ever, and so cruel, that it did seem that I couldn’t live with him. -He got to be a _dreadful drunkard_, and ☞ owned a share in a still; ☜ -and he used to keep a barrel of whiskey in his cellar all the time; and -he’d git up airly in the mornin’, and take jist enough to make him -cross; and then ’twas ‘here, nigger,’ and ‘there, nigger,’ and ‘every -where, nigger,’ at once. - -“He got to be sheriff, and then he drinked worse than ever; and when he -come home, he used to ‘buse his wife and family, and beat the fust one -he’d come to; and I’d generally be on the move, if my eyes was open, -when he got home, for he’d thrash me for nothin’. And I’ve seen him whip -his gals arter they got big enough to be _young women grown_, in his -drunken fits; and many a time I’ve run out, and stayed round the barn, -for hours and hours, till I was _nearly froze_, from fear on him; only, -sometimes, when I _knew_ he _would thrash_ somebody, he was _so_ savage, -_I’d stay in doors, and_ _let his rage bile over on me, rather than on -the gals_; _for I couldn’t bear to have them beat so_. - -“One day he tells me to git up the team, and go to drawin’ wood to the -door. I used to have nothin’ to eat generally, but buttermilk and samp, -except, now and then, a good bite from some of the gals or neighbors. -The buttermilk used to be kept in an old-fashioned Dutch barrel-churn, -till ’twas sour enough to make a pig squeal. Well, I drawed wood all -day, and one of the coldest in winter, and eat nothin’ but a basin of -buttermilk in the mornin’, and so at night I goes to put out the team, -and he says, ‘Nigger, don’t put out that team yit; go and do your -chores, and then put up ten bushels of wheat, and go to mill with it, -and bring it back to-night _ground_, or _I’ll whip your guts out_.’ - -“Well, I hadn’t had any dinner or supper, and it was a tremendous cold -night; but ‘Lecta puts into the sleigh one of these old-fashioned -cloaks, with a hood on it, and says she, ‘Don’t put it on till you git -out of sight of the house, and here’s two nut-cakes; and, if I was in -your place, I wouldn’t let the horses creep, for it’s awful cold, and -I’m ‘fraid you’ll freeze.’ - -“Well, I come to the mill, which was ten miles off, and told the miller -my story, and what master said, with tears in my eyes; for my spirit had -got so kind’a broken by my hard lot, that I didn’t seem to have anything -manly about me. ☞ Oh! how you can degrade a man, if you’ll only make him -a slave! ☜ - -“The miller says, ‘Peter, you shall have your grist as soon as -possible.’ And I set down by the furnace of coals, he kept by the -water-wheel to keep it from freezin’, and begun to roast kernels of -wheat, for I was dreadful hungry. He axed me to go in and eat; but I -didn’t want to. And so about twelve o’clock at night I got my grist, and -starts for home, and gits there, and takes good care of every thing; and -then I begins to think about my own supper. The folks was all abed and -asleep; but I finds a basin of buttermilk and samp down in the -chimney-corner, and I eats that; and, if any thing, it makes me hungrier -than I was afore; and I sets down over the fire, and begins to -_think_![8] ☜ - -Footnote 8: - - _Thought_ must ultimately prove the destruction of all oppression. Man - is a being of intellect; and if his mind is not so benighted by - darkness, or be-numbed by oppression, light will find its way into his - soul; and his natural love of freedom, and his consciousness of his - inalienable rights, will show him the claims of justice, and the deep - and awful guilt of slavery; and then he will win his way to liberty, - either by _flight_ or _blood_. Humanity may be so _chafed_ by repeated - acts of cruelty and abuse, that any means will _seem justifiable_, in - the sight of the being who is to use _some_ means for his release, if - he ever ceases to groan. It is wisdom, then, to make the slave free - while we _can_; for, as sure as God made man for freedom, so sure he - will ultimately be free, in one way or another. - -“I had had many a time of thinkin’ afore, but I had never before _felt_ -master’s _cruelty_ as I felt it now. Here he was, a rich man; and I had -slaved myself to death for him, and been a thousand times more faithful -in his business than I have ever been in my own; and yit I must -_starve_. I felt the _natur’ of injustice most keenly_, and _I bust into -tears_, for I felt kind’a broken-hearted and desolate. But I thought -_tears wouldn’t ever do the work_! ☜ I axed myself if I warn’t a _man_—a -human bein’—one of God’s crutters: and I riz up, detarmined to have -justice! ☜ ‘And now,’ says I, ‘I may as well die for an old sheep as a -lamb; and if there is any thing in this house that can satisfy my -starvation, I’ll have it, if it costs me my life.’ - -“So I starts for the cupboard, and finds it locked, and I up with one of -my feet and staves one of the panels through in the door, and there was -every thing good to eat; and so I eat till I got my _fill_ of beef, and -pork, and cabbage, and turnips and ‘taters; and then I laid into the -nicknacks, sich as pies, cakes, cheese and sich like. Well, arter I’d -done and come out, and set down by the fire, master opens his bedroom -door and sings out, ‘away with you to bed, you black infernal nigger -you, and I’ll settle with you in the mornin’, and he ripped out some -oaths that fairly made my wool rise on end, and then shets the door. -Well, thinks I, if I am to die, and I expected he’d kill me in the -mornin’, I’ll go the length of my rope, and die on a full stomach. So I -goes to an old-fashioned tray of nut-cakes, and stuffs my bosom full on -’em, and carries ’em up stairs, and puts ’em in my old straw bed, and I -knew nobody ever touched that but Pete Wheeler, and I crawled in and I -had a plenty of time to think. ☜ - -“In the mornin’ the old man gits up and makes up a fire, a thing he -hadn’t done afore in all winter, and then comes to the head of the -stairs, and calls for ‘his nigger;’ and I hears a crackin’ in the -fire,—and he’d cut a parcel of _withes_—walnut, of course, and run ’em -into the ashes, and wythed the eends on ’em under his feet, and takes -’em along,—and a large rope,—and hits me a cut and says, ‘out to the -barn with me, nigger;’ and so I follows him along. - -“Well, come to the barn, the first thing he swings the big doors open, -and the north wind swept through like a harricane. ‘Now,’ says he, -‘nigger, pull off your coat;’ I did. - -“‘Now pull off your jacket, nigger;’ I did. - -“‘Now off with your shirt, nigger;’ I did. - -“‘Now off with your pantaloons, nigger;’ I did. - -“‘And be dam quick about it too.’ - -“Arter I gits ’em off, he crosses my hands, and ties ’em together with -one end of a rope, and throws the other end up overhead, across a beam, -and then draws me up by my hands till I clears the floor two feet. He -then crosses my feet jist so, and puts the rope through the bull-ring in -the floor, and then pulls on the rope till I was drawn _tight_—till my -bones fairly snapped, and ties it, and then leaves me in that doleful -situation, and goes off to the house, and wanders round ’bout twenty -minutes; and there the north wind sweeps through: oh! how it stung; and -there I hung and cried, and the tears fell and froze on my breast, and I -wished I was _dead_. But back he comes, and says he, as he takes up a -_withe_, ‘now, you dam nigger, I’m a goin’ to settle with you for -breaking open the cupboard,’ and he hits me four or five cuts with one -and it broke; and he catches up another, and he cut all ways, cross and -back, and one way and then another, and he whipped me till the blood run -down my legs, and froze in long blood isicles on the balls of my heels, -as big as your thumb!! ☜ !! and I hollered and screamed till I was past -hollerin’ and twitchin’, for when he begun, I hollered and twitched -dreadfully; and my hands was swelled till the blood settled under my -nails and toes, and one of my feet hain’t seen a well day since: and I -cried, and the tears froze on my cheeks, and I had got almost blind, and -so stiff I couldn’t stir, and near dyin’. How long he whipped me I can’t -tell, for I got so, finally, I couldn’t tell when he _was_ a whippin’ on -me!!! ‘Oh! Mr. L.——,’ “said Peter, as the tears rolled down his wrinkled -cheeks, while the picture of that scene of blood again came up vividly -before his mind, “‘oh! Mr. L.——, it was a sight to make any body that -has got any feelin’ weep; and there I hung, and he goes off to the -house, and arter a while, I can’t tell how long, he comes back with a -tin cup full of brine, heat up, and says he, ‘now nigger, I’m goin’ to -put this on to keep you from mortifyin,’ and when it struck me, it -brought me to my feelin’, I tell ye; and then, arter a while, he lets me -down and unties me, and goes off to the house. - -“Well, I couldn’t stand up, and there the barn doors was open yit, and I -was so stiff and lame, and froze, it seemed to me I couldn’t move at -all. But I sat down, and begins to rub my hands to get ’em to their -feelin’, so I could use ’em, and then my legs, and then my other parts, -and my back I couldn’t move, for ’twas as stiff as a board, and I -couldn’t turn without turnin’ my whole body; and I should think I was in -that situation all of an hour, afore I could git my clothes on. - -“At last I got my shirt on, and it stuck fast to my back, and then my -t’other clothes on, and then I gits up and shuts the barn doors, and -waddles off to the house; and he sees me a comin’, and hollers out -‘nigger, go and do your chores, and off to the woods.’ - -“Well, I waddled round, and did my chores as well as I could, and then -takes my axe and waddles off to the woods, through a deep snow. I gits -there, and cuts down a large rock oak tree, and a good while I was ’bout -it, tu, and my shirt still stuck fast to my back. I off with one eight -foot cut, and then flung my axe down on the ground, and swore I’d _die_ -afore I cut another chip out of that log that day; and I gets down and -clears away the snow on the sunny side of the log, and sets down on the -leaves, and a part of the time I sighed, and a part of the time I cried, -and a part of the time I swore, and wished myself dead fifty times. - -“Well, settin’ there I looked up and to my surprise I see a woman comin’ -towards me; and come to, it turned out to be my old friend ‘Lecta, and -the first thing she says, when she comes up was, ‘ain’t you _most dead_, -Peter?’ ‘Yis, and I wish I was _quite_, Miss ‘Lecta;’ and she cries and -I cries, and she sets down on the log and says, ‘Peter, ain’t you -hungry? here’s some victuals for you;’ and she had some warm coffee in a -coffee-pot, and some fried meat, and some bread, and pie, and cheese, -and nut-cakes; and says she to me, ‘Peter, eat it _all_ up if you can.’ - -A. “Why! Peter what would become of the world, if it warn’t, for the -women?” - -P. “Why, Sir, they’d _eat each other up_, and what they didn’t _eat_, -they’d _kill_. Then they keep the men back from doin’ a great many -ferocious things. Why, only ‘tother day when that duel was fit in -Washington, between Graves and Cilley, the papers say that Mrs. Graves, -when she found out that the duel was a comin’ on, tried to stop her -husband, but he wouldn’t hear to her, and so he went on, and killed poor -Cilley, and made his wife a widder, and his children orphans. Now, only -think how much misery would have been spared, if he’d only heard to his -wife. - -“‘Well,’ says ‘Lecta, ‘I wouldn’t strike another stroke to day.’ And -then to be undiscovered, she goes up to a neighbor’s and stays there all -day. So at night I goes home, and does my chores the best way I could. -So I carries in a handful of wood, and master says, ‘how much wood you -cut, nigger?’ ‘I don’t know, Sir.’ ‘One load?’ ‘I don’t know, Sir.’ ‘How -many trees you cut down!’ ‘One, Sir.’ ‘You cut it up?’ ‘No, Sir.’ ‘Well, -tell me how much you have cut, dam quick, tu.’ ‘One log off, Sir.’ At -that he catches up his cane, and throws on his great coat, and fetches a -heavy oath, and starts off for the woods. I sets down in the corner, -with a dreadful ticklin’ round my heart; and the children kept a lookin’ -out of the winder, to see him comin’, and in he comes, _frothy_, he was -so mad. Mistress says to him, ‘possup,’ which means, ‘stop,’ I ‘spose, -and then he went into the other room to supper. - -Finally, I crawls into my nest of rags, and I laid on my face all night, -I couldn’t lay any other way; and next mornin’ after tryin’ several -times, I made out to git up and go down, and do my chores. - -“Arter breakfast, Mr. Abers, his brother-in-law, come down, and says he, -‘Gideon, what’s your notion in torturin’ this boy, so? If you want to -kill him, why not take an axe and put him out of his misery?’ Master -says, ‘is it any of your business?’ ‘Yis, Sir, ’tis my business, and the -business of every human bein’ not to see you torture that boy so. You -know he’s faithful, and every body knows it, and a smarter boy you can’t -find any where of his age.[9] Master then colours up, with wrath, and -says, ‘you or any body else, help yourself! I’ll do with my nigger as I -please—he’s my property, ☜ and I have a right to use my own property, as -I please. You lie, that it’s any of your business to _interfere_ with my -concerns.’[10] - -Footnote 9: - - Here is Abolition, and its opposition in a nut-shell. Abolitionists, - are those who claim that if a fellow-man is suffering, it is the - _business_ of his brother to help him, if possible, and in the best - way he can. Accordingly, we lift up our voice against the abominations - that are done in this land of _chains, and whips, and heathenism, and - slaves_! Who are our opposers, and revilers, and enemies? They are men - who _don’t believe it to be their business_, to interfere with the - rights of the slave breeder, and slave buyer, and slaveholder, of the - United States. Their creed will let them stand by and look at a - brother bleeding, and groaning, and dying under a worse than high-way - robbery, and yet ’twill bind their arms if they would extend a helping - hand—’twill stop their mouths if they wish to plead for the dumb. Oh! - my soul! who that respects the claims of humanity, ain’t ashamed to - disgrace man so? What philanthropist who wants to see all men rise - high in virtue, and happiness, ain’t ashamed to hold one set of - principles for _men_ in _freedom_, and another for _men in chains_. - What christian don’t blush, to urge as an excuse for chilling and - freezing his sympathies for the slave, “the legislation of the country - forbids me to help a brother in distress.” - -Footnote 10: - - The old corner stone of the whole edifice—☞ _property in man_. ☜ This - reply of the master, is just like the low, and vile swaggering and - bragging of the South, that has so long intimidated the time-serving - _politician of the North, with Southern principles_, and the - dough-faced christian with infidel principles. There is something - humiliating in the thought, that the South has been able always to put - down the rising spirit of freedom at the North, by brags and swagger! - ☜ Ever since the early days of the Revolution, when Adams and Hancock, - and Ames, and Franklin, tried to get the South to wash her hands from - the blood of oppression, and be clean, bluster, and noise, and brags - have crushed our efforts. And these same patriots, noble in every - thing else, were dragooned into submission, and this Moloch of the - South was worshipped by the signers of the greatest instrument the - world ever saw. And, as the compromise _must go on_, an unholy - alliance was formed between liberty and despotism; and as the price - paid for the temple’s going up, tyranny has made a great niche in our - temple of freedom, and there this strange god is worshipped by - freemen. Oh! God! what blasphemy is here? tyranny and liberty - worshipped together! offerings made to the God of heaven, and the - demon of oppression on the same altar! - - Nullification lifted its brags and boasts, and swagger, and the North - gave up her principles. And because the South has always succeeded, - they already boast of victory over all the Abolitionists of the North, - and expect either that they have accomplished the work of crushing - them, or that they can do it just when they please. But the South will - find that since the days of Jay, and Adams, liberty has _grown - strong_, and when the great struggle comes, they will see that there - are but two parties on the field,—a few slave-driving, slave-breeding - tyrants covered with blood, unrighteously shed, at war with the - combined powers of the world. The principles of Abolition, have - ennobled the human mind, and in all the world’s history, cannot be - found a body of men, who have endured so much obloquy and abuse, with - so much unflinching firmness, and manly fortitude, as the - Abolitionists. They are not to be awed by swagger, nor stopped by - brags. No! thanks to our Leader, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died to - break every chain in creation, the work of human freedom must go - forward; and the South has no more power to stop the progress of - light, and principles of liberty in this age, than the progress of the - sun in the heavens. The great guiding principle of all the benevolence - in the world is, to interfere to save a brother from distress and - tyranny.—Every reform must interfere with tyranny: ’twas so with - christianity in its establishment—with the Reformation—with our - Revolution—and shall be so—for christianity makes it man’s business to - interfere with every usurpation, and system of tyranny and invasion of - human rights, until every yoke shall be broken in the entire dominions - of God. - -“‘Don’t, you give me the lie again,’ says Abers, ‘or I’ll give you what -a liar deserves.’ Well, master give him the lie agin, and Abers took him -by the nape of the neck and by the britch of his clothes, and flings him -down on the floor, as you would a child, (for master was a small man,) -and he pounds him and kicks him and bruises him up _most egregiously_ -and then starts for the door and says, ‘come along with me, Peter, you -are agoin’ to be my boy a spell, and I’ll see if this is your fault, or -‘_master’s_’ as _you_ call him.’ - -“So I picks up my old hat, there warn’t any crown in it, but swindle tow -stuffed in, and goes along with him. I gits there, and Mrs. Abers, -master’s sister, says, ‘my dear feller, ain’t you almost dead?’ - -“So arter breakfast, for Mr. Abers had come down afore breakfast, and I -sets down and eats with ’em, Mrs. Abers takes a leetle skillet, and -warms some water, and then she tries to pull my shirt off, and it stuck -fast to my back, and so she puts in some castile soap-suds all over my -back, and I finally gits it off, and all the wool that had come off of -my old homespun shirt of wool, and the hairs of this, sticks in the -wounds, and so she takes and picks ’em all out, and washes me with a -sponge very carefully, but oh! how it hurt.—Arter this she takes a piece -of fine cambric linen, and wets it in sweet ile, and lays it all over my -back, and I felt like a new crutter; and then I went to bed and slept a -good while, and only got up at sundown to eat, and then to bed agin. So -next mornin’ she put on another jist like it, and I stayed there a -fortnight and had my ease, and lived on the fat of the land tu, I tell -ye.” - -A. “Didn’t your master come after you, Peter?” - -P. “Oh! no, Sir; he had all he could do to take care of the bruises -Abers gin him. So one Monday mornin’ he tells me I had better go home to -master’s. Well, I begins to cry, and says, ‘I’ll go, but master will -whip me to death, next time.’ ‘No he won’t,’ says Abers. ‘You go and do -your chores, and be a good boy; and I’ll be over bim’bye, and see how -you git along.’ - -“Well, as soon as I got home, I opened the door, and mistress says, ‘You -come home agin’, have you, you black son of a bitch?’ - -“‘Yes, ma’am; and how does master do?’ - -“‘None of your business, you black skunk, you.’ - -“So master finds I’d got home, and he sends one of the children out -arter me; and in I goes, and finds him on his bed yit. He speaks, ‘You -got home, have you?’ ‘Yis, Sir; and how does master do?’ ‘Oh! I’m -_almost dead_, Peter;’ and he spoke as mild as _you_ do. And I says, -‘I’m dreadful sorry for you;’ and I _lied, tu_. So I pitied him, and -pretended to feel bad, and cry. And he says, ‘You must be a good boy, -and take good care of the stock, till I gets well.’ And so out I goes to -the barn, and sung, and danced, and felt as tickled as a boy with a new -whistle, to think master had got a good bruisin’ as well as myself, and -I’d got on my taps first. - -“Well, for six months he was a kind of a decent man; he’d speak kind’a -pleasant—for he was so ‘fraid of Abers, that he darn’t do any other way. - -“Next winter followin’, I was in the barn thrashin’; and, as I stood -with my back to the south door, a litter of leetle white pigs comes -along, and goes to eatin’ the karnels of wheat that fell over master’s -barn door sill; and I was kind’a pleased to see sich leetle fellers, -they always seemed so kind’a _funny_; and the fust thing I knew, he -struck me over the head with one of these ’ere old-fashioned pitchforks, -and I fell into the straw jist like a pluck in a pail of water. I -gathers as quick as I could, arter I found out I was down, and he stood, -with a fork in his hand, and swore if I stirred, he’d knock me down, and -pin me to the floor. - -“I run out of the big door, and he arter me, with the fork in his hand; -and he run me into the snow, where ’twas deep, and got me to the fence, -where I was up to my middle in snow, and couldn’t move; and he was a -goin’ to thrust arter me, and I hollers, and says, ‘Master, _don’t_ -stick that into me.’ ‘I _will_, you black devil.’ I see there was no -hope for me; and I reaches out, and got hold of a stake, and as I took -hold on it, as ’twas so ordered, _it come out_; and, as he made a plunge -arter _me_, I struck arter him with this stake, and hit him right across -the _small of his back_; and the way I did it warn’t slow; and he fell -into the snow like a dead man; and he lay there, and didn’t stir, only -one of his feet _quivered_; and I began to grow scart, for fear he was -dyin’; and I was tempted to run into the barn, and dash my head agin’ a -post, and dash my brains out; and the longer I stood there, the worse I -felt, for I knew for murder a body must be hung. - -“But bim’bye he begun to gasp, and gasp, and catch his breath; and he -did that three or four times; and then the blood poured out of his -mouth; and he says, as soon as he could speak, ‘Help me, Peter.’ And I -says, ‘I shan’t.’ And he says agin’, in a low voice, ‘Oh! help me!’ I -says, ‘I’ll see the devil have you, afore I’ll help you, you old -heathen, you.’ And at that he draws a dreadful oath, that fairly made -the snow melt; and says agin’, ‘Do you help me, you infernal cuss.’ I -uses the same words agin’; and he tells me, ‘if you don’t, I’ll kill you -as sure as ever I get into the house.’ - -“Soon he stood clear up, and walked along by the fence, and drew himself -by the rails to the house; and I went to thrashin’ agin’. Pretty soon -‘Lecta comes out to the barn, and says, ‘Peter, father wants to see -you.’ I says, ‘If he wants to see me mor’n I want to see him, he must -come where I be;’ and I had a dreadful oath with it. And she speaks as -mild as a blue-bird, and says, ‘Now, Peter, ‘tend to me. You know I’m -always good to you; now if you don’t mind, you’ll lose a friend.’ That -touches my feelin’s, and I starts for the house; but I ’spected to be -_killed_ as sure as I stepped across the _sill_. - -“Well, I entered the old cellar-kitchen; and mistress locks the door, -and puts the key in her side-pocket; and master set in one chair, and -his arm a restin’ on another, as I set now, and he raises up, and takes -down the rifle that hung in the hooks over his head on a beam; and _I -knew I was a dead man_, for I had loaded it a few days afore for a bear; -and says he, as he fetches it up to his face, and cocks it, and pints it -right at my heart. ‘Now, you dam nigger, I’ll end your existence.’ - -“Now death stared me right in the face, and I knew I had nothin’ to -lose; and the minute he aimed at me, I jumped at him like a _streak_, -and run my head right atwixt his legs, and catched him, and flung him -right over my head a tumblin’, and I did it as quick as lightnin’; and, -as he fell, _the rifle went off_, and bored two doors, and lodged in the -wall of the bedroom; and I flew and _on_ to him, and clinched hold on -his souse, and planted my knees in his belly, and jammed his old head up -and down on the floor, and the way I did it warn’t to be beat. - -“Well, by this time, old mistress come, and hit me a slap on the -backsides, with one of these ’ere old-fashioned Dutch fire-slices, and -it didn’t set very asy ‘nother; but I still hung on to one ear, and -fetched her a _side-winder_ right across the bridge of her old nose, and -she fell backwards, and out come the key of the door out of her pocket; -and ‘Lecta got the key, and run and opened the door—for the noise had -brought the gals down like fury; and I gin his old head one more mortal -jam with both hands, and pummelled his old belly once more hard, and -leaped out of the door, and put out for the barn. - -“At night I come back, and there was somethin’ better for my supper than -I had had since I lived there. I set down to eat; and he come out into -the kitchen with his cane, and cussed, and swore, and ripped, and tore; -and I says, ‘Master, you may cuss and swear as much as you please; but -on the peril of _your life_, don’t you lay a finger on me;’ and there -was a big old-fashioned butcher-knife lay on the table, and I says to -him, ‘Just as sure as you do, I’ll run that butcher-knife through you, -and clinch it.’ I had the worst oath I ever took in all my life, and -spoke so savage, that I fairly _scart him_. - -“I told him to give me a paper to look a new master; for you see, there -was a law, that if a slave, in them days, wanted to change masters, on -account of cruelty, that his old master must give him a paper, and he -could git a new one, if he could find a man that would buy him. At fust -he said he would give me a paper in the mornin’, but right off he says, -‘No, I swear I won’t; _I’ll have the pleasure of killin’ on you -myself!_’ ☜ - -“So he cussed, and finally, went into the other room; and the gals says, -‘Peter, now is your time; stick to him, and you’ll either make it better -or worse for you.’ - -“So I goes off to bed, and takes with me a walnut flail swingle; and I -crawled into my nest of rags, and lay on my elbow all night; and if a -rat or a mouse stirred, I trembled, for I expected every minute he’d be -a comin’ up with a rifle to shoot me; and I didn’t sleep a wink all that -night. And I swore to Almighty God, that the fust time I got a chance -I’d clear from his reach; and I prayed to the God of freedom to help me -get free.” - -A. “Well, Peter, it’s late now, and we’ll leave that part of the story -for another chapter.”[11] - -Footnote 11: - - All this is a true picture of slavery and oppression, all over the - globe. Man is not fit to possess _irresponsible power_—God never - designed it; and every experiment on earth has proved the awful - consequence of perverting God’s design. I know it will be said by - almost every reader, who closes this chapter, that this was an - isolated and peculiar case; but I know, from observation, that there - is nothing at all peculiar in it to the system of slavery; and when - the judgment day shall come, and the history of every slaveholder is - opened, in letters of fire, upon the gaze of the whole universe, that - there will be something peculiarly dark and awful in every chapter of - oppression which the universe shall see unfolded. And if I could quote - but one text of God’s Bible, in the ear of every slaveholder in - creation, it would be that astounding assertion—“When he maketh - inquisition for blood he remembereth them.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER V. - -Peter’s master prosecuted for abusing him, and fined $500, and put under - a bond of $2000 for good behavior—Peter for a long time has a plan for - running away, and the girls help him in it—“the big eclipse of - 1806”—Peter starts at night to run away, and the girls carry him ten - miles on his road—the parting scene—travels all night, and next day - sleeps in a hollow log in the woods—accosted by a man on the - Skeneateles bridge—sleeps in a barn—is discovered—two pain’ters on the - road—discovered and pursued—frightened by a little girl—encounter with - “two black gentlemen with a white ring round their necks”—“Ingens” - chase him—“Utica quite a thrifty little place”—hires out nine - days—Little Falls—hires out on a boat to go to “Snackady”—makes three - trips—is discovered by Morehouse ☜—the women help him to escape to - Albany—hires out on Truesdell’s sloop—meets master in the street—goes - to New York—a reward of $100 offered for him—Capt. comes to take him - back to his master, for “one hundred dollars don’t grow on every - bush”—“feels distressedly”—but Capt. Truesdell promises to protect - him, “as long as grass grows and water runs—he follows the river. - - -_Author._ “Good evening, Peter,—how do you do to-night?” - -_Peter._ “Very well; and how’s the Domine?” - -A. “Pretty well. Take a chair and go ahead with your story.” - -P. “My mind had been made up for years to git out of my trouble,—but I -thought I’d wait till spring afore I started. Things had got to sich a -state, I see I must either stay and be killed myself, or kill master, or -run away; and I thought ‘twould be the best course to run away; and I -wanted good travellin’, and I concluded I’d wait till the movin’ was -good. In the meantime, Master prosecuted Abers for assaulting him in his -own house, and Abers paid the damages; I don’t know how much; and then -Abers prosecuted master afore the same court, for abusin’ me, on behalf -of the state. His whole family was brought forward and sworn, and -testified agin’ him, and the trial lasted two days. I was brought -forward, and had my shirt took off, to show the scars in my meat; and -the judge says, ‘Peter, how long did he whip you in the barn?’ And I up -and told him the story as straight as I could. Then the lawyers made -their pleas on both sides, and the case was submitted to the jury, and -out they went, and stayed half an hour, and brought in a verdict of -abuse, even unto _murder intent_. The judge says, ‘how so?’ The foreman -on the jury says, ‘because he thrice attempted to kill him with a -rifle.’ - -“Well, his sentence finally was, to pay five hundred dollars damages, or -to go to jail till he did; and be put under bonds of two thousand -dollars for good behavior in future. The judge gin him half an hour to -decide in; and he sot and sot till his time was up; and then the judge -told the sheriff to take him to jail, and he went to get the hand-cuffs, -and put ’em on to master’s hands; and the judge says, ‘_screw ’em -tight_;’ for you see ‘master hadn’t treated the court with proper -respect,’ the judge said. I should think he had the cuffs on ten -minutes, and then he says, ‘I’ll pay the money;’ and the sheriff off -with the cuffs, and master out with his pocket-book, and counted out the -money to the sheriff, and then he gin bail, and so the matter ended. - -“The judge come to me and says, ‘now, Peter, do you be faithful, and if -you are abused come to me, and I’ll take care of it. - -“Well, all went home, and arter that master behaved himself pretty -decent towards me, only the gals said he used to say, ‘I wish I’d -_killed_ the dam _nigger_, and then I shouldn’t have this five hundred -dollars to pay.’ - -“My whole fare was now better, ☞ but I still considered myself a slave, -☜ and that galled my feelin’s, and I determined I’d be free, or die in -the cause; for you see, by this time, I’d larned more of the _rights of -human natur’_, and I felt that I was a man!! - -“I had this in contemplation all of three or four years afore I run, and -I swore a heap ’bout it tu. The gals had made me a new suit, and had it -ready for runnin’ a year afore. The gals paid for it, and kept it -secret; and so a woman can keep a secret, arter all; and I had -twenty-one dollars, in specie, that I’d been a gettin’ for five years, -by little and little, fishin’ and chorin’, and catchin’ muskrats, that I -kept from master; and I made ‘Lecta my banker; and every copper and -sixpence I got I put into her hand, and now I’d got things ready for a -start. - -“Well, the big eclipse, as they called it, come on the 16th of June, -1806, I believe, and we had curious times, I tell ye. I was in the lot a -hoein’ corn, and it begun to grow dark, right in the day time, and the -birds and whip-poor-wills begun to sing, jist as in the evenin’, and the -hens run to the roost, and I come to the house; and the folks had -smoked-glass lookin’ through at the sun, and I axed ’em ‘what’s the -matter?’ and they said ‘the moon is atwixt us and the sun.’ - -“Well, thinks says I, ‘that’s rale curious.’ Master looked at it _once_, -and then sot down and groaned, and fetched some very heavy sighs, and -turned pale, and looked solemn; and there was two or three old Dutch -women ‘round there that looked distracted; they hollered and screamed -and took on terribly, and thought the world was a comin’ to an end. -Well, I didn’t find out the secret of that eclipse, till a sea captain -told me, long arter this. I b’lieve this eclipse happened on Tuesday; -and next Sunday night, atwixt twelve and one o’clock, I started, and -detarmined that if ever I went back to Gideon Morehouse’s, _I’d go a -dead man_. - -“We all went to bed as usual, but not to sleep; and so, ’bout twelve -‘clock, I went out as still as I could, and tackled up the old horse and -wagon, and oh! how I felt. I was kind’a glad and kind’a sorry, and my -heart patted agin my ribs hard, and I sweat till my old shirt was as wet -as sock. So I hitched the horse away from the house, and went in and -told the gals, and I fetched out my knapsack that had my new clothes in -it, and all on us went out and got in and started off. Oh! I tell ye, -the horse didn’t _creep_; and the gals begins to talk to me and say, -‘now, Peter, you must be honest and true, and faithful to every body, -and that’s the way you’ll gain friends;’ and ‘Lecta says, ‘if you work -for anybody, be careful to please the women folks, and if the women are -on your side, you’ll git along well enough.’ - -“Well, we drove ten miles, and come to a gate, and ‘twouldn’t do for -them to go through, and so there we parted; and they told me to die -afore I got catched,—and if I did, not to _bring ’em out_. I told them -I’d die five times over afore I’d fetch ’em out; and so ‘Lecta took me -by the hand and kissed me on the cheek, and I kissed her on the _hand_, -for I thought her _face_ warn’t no place for me: and then she squeezes -my hand, and says, ‘God bless you, Peter;’ and Polly did the same, and -there was some cryin’ on both sides. So I helped ’em off, and as we -parted, each one gin me a handsome half-dollar, and I kept one on ’em a -good many years; and, finally, I gin it to my sweet-heart in Santa Cruz, -and I guess she’s got it yit. - -“I starts on my journey with a heavy heart, sobbin’ and cryin’, for I -begun to cry as soon as I got out of the wagon. I guess I cried all of -three hours afore mornin’, and I felt so distressedly ’bout leavin’ the -gals I almost wished myself back; but I’d launched out, and I warn’t -agoin’ back _alive_. - -“I travelled till daylight, and then, to be undiscovered, I took to the -woods, and stayed there all day, and eat the food I took along in the -knapsack; and a dreadful thunder-storm come, and I crawled, feet first, -into a fell holler old tree, and pulled in my knapsack for a pillar, and -had a good sleep; only a part of the time I cried, and when I come out I -was very dry, and I lays down and drinks a bellyful of water out of a -place made by a crutter’s track, and filled by the rain, and on I went -till I come to Skaneatales Bridge; and ’twas now dark, and when I got -into the middle, a man comes up and says ‘good evenin’, Peter.’ Well, I -stood and says nothin’, only I expected my doom was sealed. He says ‘you -needn’t be scart, Peter,’ and come to, it was a black man I’d known, and -he takes me into his house in the back room, and gin me a good meal. You -see I’d seen him a good many times agoin’ by there with a team. Arter -supper his wife gin me a pair of stockins and half a dollar, and he gin -me half a loaf of wheat bread, and a hunk of biled bacon, and a silver -dollar, and off I started, with a kind of a light heart. I travels all -that night till daylight, and grew tired and sleepy; and on the right -side of the road I see a barn, and so I goes in and lies down on the -hay, and I’d no sooner struck the mow than I fell asleep. When I woke up -the sun was up three hours, and some men were goin’ into the field with -a team, and that ‘woke me up. I looks for a chance to clear, and I sees -a piece of woods off about half a mile, and I gits off; so the barn hid -me from ’em, and I lays my course for these woods, and jist by ’em was a -large piece of wheat, and I gits in and was so hid I stays there all -day; and a part of the time I cried, and sat down, and stood up, and -whistled, and all that, and it come night, I started out, and travelled -till about midnight, and had a plenty to eat yit. - -“Well, the moon shone bright, and I was travellin’ on between two high -hills, and the fust thing I hears was the screech of a pain’ter; and if -you’d been there, I guess you’d thought the black boy had turned white. -Well, on the other hill was an answer to this one; and I travelled on, -and every now and then, I heard one holler and t’other answer, but I -kept on the move; and when the moon come out from a cloud it struck on -the hill, and I see one on ’em, and bim’bye, both on ’em got together, -and sich a time I never see atwixt two live things. Their screeches -fairly went _through_ me. Not long arter I come up to a house, and bein’ -very dry, I turned into the gate to git a drink of water, and I drawed -up some, and a big black dog come plungin’ out, and in a minute a light -was struck up, and out come a man, and hollered to his dog to ‘_git -out_;’ and he says to me, ‘Good night, Sir; you travel late.’ ‘Yis, -Sir.’ ‘What’s the reason?’ And I had a lie all ready, cut and dried. ‘My -mother lies at the pint of death in the city of New York, and I’m a -hastenin’ down to see her, to git there if I can afore she dies.’ He -rather insisted on my comin’ in, but I declined, and bid him a good -night, and passed on my way. I left the road for fear this man might -think I was _a run-away_, and so pursue me; and on I went to the woods. -I hadn’t got fur afore I hears a horse’s hoofs clatterin’ along the -road; and thinks, says I, ‘I’m ahead of you, now, my sweet feller—_I’m -in the bush_.’ And so I put on; and by daylight I thought I was fur -enough off, and I could travel a heap faster in the road, so I put for -the road; and nothin’ troubled me till ten o’clock. And as I come along -to an old loghouse, a little gal come out, and hollers, ‘Run, nigger, -run, they’re arter ye; you’re a _run-away, I know_.’ I tell you it -struck me with surprise, to think how she knew I was a run-away. I says -nothin’, but she says the same thing agin’; and on I goes till I come to -a turn in the road where I was hid, and I patted the sand nicely for a -spell I tell ye. When I got along a while, I run into a bunch of white -pines; and as I slipped along, I come across one of these ’ere black -gentlemen with a white ring round his neck, and he riz up and seemed -detarmined to have a battle with me. Well, I closed in with him, and -_dispersed_ him quick, with a club; and in about four rods I met -another, and I dispersed him in short order; and got out into the road, -and travelled till night; and come to a gate, and axed the man if I -might _stay with him_. An Ingen man kept the gate, and a kind of a -tavern, tu; and he says, ‘yis;’ and I stayed, and was treated _well_, -and not a question axed. Well, I axed him how fur ’twas to a village, -and he says, ‘six miles to Oneida village,’ and says he, ‘what be you, -an Ingen, or a nigger?’ I says, ‘I guess I’m a kind of a mix:’ and he -put his hand on to my head, and says, ‘well, I guess you’ve got some -nigger blood in ye, I guess I shan’t charge you but half price,’ and so -off I starts. Well, soon I come to a parcel of blackberry bushes, and -out come an Ingen squaw, and says, ‘sago;’ and I answers, ‘sagole,’ -that’s a kind of a ‘how de.’ And all along in the bushes was young -Ingens, as thick as toads arter a shower, and I was so scart to think -what I’d meet next, my hair fairly riz on end; and in a minute, right -afore me I see a comin’ about twenty big, trim, strappin’ Ingens, with -their rifles, and tomahawks, and scalpin’ knives, and then I wished I -was back in master’s old kitchen, for I thought they was arter me; and I -put out and run, and a tall Ingen arter me to scare me, and I run my -prettiest for about fifty rods, and then I stubbled my toe agin a stone, -and fell my length, heels over head. But, I up and started agin, and -then the Ingen stopped, and oh! sich a yelp as he gin, and all on ’em -answered him, and off he went and left me, and that made me feel better -than bein’ in old master’s kitchen. - -“I travels on and comes to a tavern, and got some breakfast of fresh -salmon, and had a talk with the landlord’s darter, and she was half -Ingen, for her father had married an Ingen woman; and while I was there, -up come four big Ingens arter whiskey, and they had no money, and so -they left a bunch of skins in pawn till they come back. So I paid him -thirty-seven and a half cents and come on. The next time I stopped at a -cake and beer shop, and I told the old woman sich a pitiful story, that -she gin me all I’d bought and a card of gingerbread to boot, and I come -on rejoicin’. They was Yankee folks, and, say what you will, the Yankee -folks are fine fellers where ever you meet ’em. - -“Next place I passed was Utica, which was quite a _thrifty little -place_; but I didn’t stop there; and on a little I got a ride with a -teamster down twenty miles, to a place about six miles west of Little -Falls, and there I put up with a man, and he hired me to help him work -nine days and a half, and gin me a dollar a day, and paid me the silver, -and he owned a black boy by the name of Toney. We called him Tone, and -they did abuse him bad enough, poor feller! he was all scars from head -to foot, and I slept with him, and he showed me where they’d cut him to -pieces with a cat-o’-nine-tails. And it did seem, to look at him, as -though he must have been cut up into mince meat, almost!! ☜ !! - -“Well, I left him, and got down about two miles on my journey, and there -lay a Durham boat, aground in the Mohawk River; and a man aboard -hollered to me, to come down, and he axed me if I didn’t want to _work -my passage down to Snackady_. I says, ‘_yis, if you’ll pay me for it_!!’ -You see I felt very independent jist now, for I begun to feel my oats a -leetle; and so he agreed to give me twenty shillin’s if I would, and so -I agreed tu, and went aboard, and glad enough tu of sich a fat chance of -gittin’ along. - -“We come to ‘the Falls,’ and they was a great curiosity I tell ye; and -we got our boat down ’em, through a canal dug round ’em by five or six -locks. Oh! them falls was a fine sight—the water a thunderin’ along all -foam. Well, we had good times a goin’ down, and come to Snackady, the -man wanted to hire me to go trips with him up and down from Utica, and -offered me ten dollars a trip. So we got a load of dry goods and -groceries, and goes back for Utica, and gits there Saturday night. The -captain of the boat was John Munson, and I made three trips with him, -and calculated to have made the fourth, but somethin’ turned up that -warn’t so agreeable. I stayed there Sunday, and Sunday evenin’ about -seven o’clock, I goes up on the hill with one of the hands, to see some -of our colour, and gits back arter a roustin’ time about ten o’clock, -and as soon as I enters the house, Mrs. Munson says, ‘why lord-a-massa -Peter, _your master has been here arter you_, and what shall we do?’ And -I was so thunderstruck, I didn’t know what to say, or do. And says she, -‘you must make your escape the best way you can.’ - -“I goes up stairs and gathers up my clothes, and the women folks comes -up tu, and while we was there preparin’ my escape, old master and the -sheriff comes in below! and he says to Munson, who lay on the bed, ‘I’m -a goin’ to sarch your house for my nigger;’ and Munson rises up and -says, ‘what the devil do you mean? away with you out of my house. I -knows nothin’ about your nigger, nor am I your nigger’s keeper—besides, -‘afore you sarch my house, you’ve got to bring a legal sarch-warrant, -and now show it or out of my house, or you’ll catch my trotters into -your starn, _quick_ tu.’ - -“Well, I darn’t listen to hear any thing more, but all a tremblin’, says -I to the women, ‘what in the name of distraction shall I do?’ - -“Mrs. Munson says, ‘I’ll go down and swing round the well-sweep, and you -jump on, and down head-foremost.’ I flings out my bundle, and up comes -the well-sweep, and I hopped on, and down I went head foremost, jist -like a cat, and put out for the river; and I found Mrs. Munson there -with my clothes, for she’d took ’em as soon as she could, and put out -with ’em for the river. ‘And now Peter,’ says she ‘do you make the best -of your way down to Albany, and travel till you git there, and don’t you -git catched; and so I off, arter thankin’ Mrs. Munson, and I wanted to -thank Mr. Munson tu, for his management, but I couldn’t spend the time, -and I moved some tu; and I got down to Albany by one o’clock at night, -and there lay a sloop right agin’ the wharf, alongside the old stage -tavern; and as I was a wanderin’ along by it, there seemed to be a -colored man standin’ on deck, ’bout fifty years old, and his head was -most as white as flax, and says he as he hails me, ‘where you travellin’ -tu, my son?’ I says, ‘I’m bound for New York,’ and I out with my old lie -agin ’bout my mother. You see that lie was like some minister’s -sarmints, that goes round the country and preaches the same old sarmint -till it’s threadbare—but it sarved my turn. ‘Come aboard my son, and -take some refreshments;’ and so I goes down into the cabin, and I feels -kind’a guilty, sorry, and hungry, and my feet was sore, for I’d walked -bare-foot from Snackady; and if you did but know it, it was a dreadful -sandy road, but I wanted no shoes ’bout me that night. Well, pretty soon -my meal was ready, and I had a good cup of coffee, and ham, and eggs, -and arter that, says he, ‘now lay down in my berth;’ and I laid down, -and in two minutes I got fast to sleep, and the first I knew old master -had me by the nape of the neck, and called for some one to help him, and -he had a big chain, and he begins to bind me and I sings out, ‘murder,’ -as loud as I could scream, and the old gentleman comes to the berth, and -says, ‘what’s the matter my son?’ and I woke up, and ’twas _a dream_, -and I was so weak I couldn’t hardly speak, and I was cryin’ and my shirt -was as wet as a drownded rat; and the old man says, ‘why, what’s the -matter, Peter? you’re as white as a sheet? ‘I says, ‘nothin’ only a -dream;’ and says he, ‘try to git some sleep my son, nobody shan’t hurt -you.’ And so I catches kind’a cat-naps, and then the old man would chase -me, and I run into the woods; and three or four men was arter me on -white horses, and I run into a muddy slough, and jumped from bog to bog, -and slump into my knees in the mud, and I’d worry and worry to git -through, and at last I did; and then I had to cross a river to git out -of their way, and I swum across it, and it was a pure crystal stream, -and I could see gold stones and little fish on the bottom. Well, I got -to the bank and sets down, and they couldn’t git to me, and I had a good -quiet sleep. Finally, the old man comes to me, and says, ‘come, my son, -git up and eat some breakfast. And I up, and the sun was an hour high, -and more tu. I washes me, and we had some stewed eels and coffee; and we -eat alone, for all the hands and captain was a spendin’ the night among -their friends ashore. And the old man begins to question me out whether -I warn’t a run-away, and I rother denied it in the first place; and he -says, ‘you needn’t be afeard of me. You’re a run-away, and if you’ll -tell me your story, I’ll help you.’ So I up and told him my whole story, -and he says, ‘I know’d you was a run-away when you come aboard last -night, for I was once a slave myself, and now arter breakfast you go -with me, and I’ll show you a good safe place to go and be a cook.’ - -“So we walked along on the dock, and says he, ‘there comes the Samson, -Captain John Truesdell, I guess he wants you, for I understood his cook -left him in Troy.’ - -“So the Samson rounded up nigh our’n, and the captain jumps ashore, and -says he, ‘boy do you want a berth?’ and I touches my hat, and says, -‘yis, Sir.’ And he says, ‘can you roast, bake, and bile, &c.?’ I says, -‘I guess so.’ ‘Can you reef a line of veal, and cook a tater?’ ‘Yis, -Sir, all that.’ ‘Well, you are jist the boy I want; ‘what do you ask a -month?’ I says, ‘I don’t know:’ but I’d a gone with him if he hadn’t -agin me a skinned sixpence a month. Well, he looks at me, and slaps me -on the shoulder, and says he, ‘you look like a square-built clever -feller,—I’ll give you eight dollars a month.’ - -“This colored man looks at me and shakes his head, and holds up all -hands, and fingers, and thumbs, and that’s ten you know. So I axed him -ten dollars a month. And says he, ‘I’ll give it;’ and my heart jumps up -into my mouth. And he claps his hand into his pocket, and took out three -dollars, and says he, ‘now go up to the market and git two quarters -veal, and six shillin’ loaves of bread, and here’s the market basket.’ -Well, I thought it kind’a strange that he should trust me, cause I was a -stranger; but I found out arter this, a followin’ the seas, that it was -the natur’ of sailors to be trusty. Well, I off to the market, and I -goes up State-street and looked across on ‘tother side, and who should I -see but _Master and the Sheriff_, a comin’ down; so I pulls my tarpaulin -hat over my eyes, for I’d got all rigged out with a sailor suit on the -Mohawk, and I spurs up, and the grass didn’t grow under my feet any -nother. I does my business, and hastens back as fast as possible, and -got aboard, and the captain made loose, and bore away into the wind, and -made all fast; and the sails filled, and down the river we went like a -bird. A stiff breeze aft, and I was on deck, for I wanted to see, and -the captain comes along and says, ‘boy, you’d better below,’ and down I -went. Well, we run under that breeze down to the overslaugh, and got -aground, and then my joy was turned into sorrow. The captain says to me, -‘boy, you keep ship while I and the hands go back and git _a lighter_, -or we shan’t git off in a week; and he takes all hands into the jolly -boat and starts for the city again. Arter they’d gone I wanders up and -down in the ship, and cried, and thought this runnin’ aground was all -done a purpose to catch me; and I goes down into the cabin and ties all -my clothes up in a snug bundle, and goes into the aft cabin, and opens -the larboard window, and made up my mind that if I see any body come -that looked suspicious, I’d take to the water. - -Well, afore long, I see the jolly boat a comin’ down the river, and -every time the oars struck she almost riz out of the water. Three men on -a side and the captain sot steerin’ and as she draws nigher and nigher I -draws myself into a smaller compass, for I was afeard master was aboard -that boat. Well, she comes alongside, but thanks to God no master in -that boat. - -“The captain comes on deck and says with a smile, ‘_Peter, you may git -dinner now_.[12] So I goes and gits a good dinner, for I understood -cookin’ pretty well, and they eats, and I tu, and then I clears off the -table, and washes the dishes, and sweeps the cabin, and goes on deck. -And sees a lighter comin’ down the river, and she rounded up and come -alongside, and we made fast, and up hatches and took out the wheat, and -worked till evenin’, and then she swung off; and by mornin’ we’d got all -the freight aboard, and we discharged the lighter and highted all sail, -and the wind was strong aft, and we lowered sail no more till we landed -in New York, and that was the next day at evenin’. - -Footnote 12: - - What a cheerful air hangs around the path of liberty! I was once - reading this page to a warm-hearted and benevolent Abolitionist, and - when I came to this speech of the captain, he burst into tears as he - exclaimed, “Oh, what a change in that boy’s existence! It seems to me - that such kindness must almost have broken his heart. Oh! a man must - have a bad heart not to desire to see every yoke broken, and all the - oppressed go free.” - -“Well, the second night arter this, the captain come down into the -cabin, and says he, ‘Peter I’ve got a story for you.’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘I -wants to hear it, Sir.’ ‘Well last night there was a small man from -Cayuga county, by the name of Gideon Morehouse ☜ come aboard my sloop, -and says, “you’ve got my nigger concealed aboard your ship, and I’ve got -authority to sarch your vessel;” and he sarched my vessel and every body -and every thing in it, and by good luck _you_ was ashore, or he’d a had -you; for you must be the boy by description.’ - -“Now I was on the poise whether to tell the truth or not; but I was -rather constrained to lie; but the captain says, ‘tell me the truth, -Peter, for ’twill be better for you in the end; so I up and told him my -whole story, as straight as a compass, and long as a string. - -“‘Well’ says he, ‘be a good boy, and I’ll take care on you.’ So we -stayed in New York a few days, and back to Albany, and started for New -York agin and we had fourteen pretty genteel passengers, and the captain -says, ‘now Peter be very attentive to ’em and you’ll git a good many -presents from ’em.’ ‘So I cleaned their boots and waited on ’em, and -when I got to York I carried their baggage round the city, and when I -got to the sloop I counted my money, and had six dollars fifty cents, -jist for bein’ polite, and it’s jist as easy to be polite as any way. - -“Well, the next mornin’ the captain comes to me about daylight, and -hollers, ‘up nig, there’s a present for you on deck.’ - -“So I hops up in great haste and there was stuck on the sign of the -vessel, an advertisement, and ‘reward of one hundred dollars, and all -charges paid for catchin’ a large bull-eyed Negro, &c.’ The captain -reads that to me, and says very seriously, ‘Peter that’s a great reward. -You run down in the cabin and git your breakfast, I must have that -hundred dollars; for one hundred dollars don’t grow on every bush.’ - -“Well, I started and went down, a sobbin’ and cryin’ to get breakfast, -and calls the captain down to eat, and he sets down and says he, ‘Peter -ain’t you agoin’ to set down and eat somethin’? it will be the last -breakfast you’ll eat with us.’ - -“I says with a very heavy heart, ‘no Sir, I wants no breakfast.’ Arter -breakfast says he, ‘now clear off the table, and do up all your things -nice and scour your brasses, so that when I get another cook he shan’t -say you was a dirty feller.’ So I goes and obeys all his orders, and I -shed some tears tu, I tell ye; and then I set down and had a -regular-built cryin’ spell, and then the captain comes down and says, -‘you done all your work up nicely?’ ‘Yis Sir,’ ‘well, now go and tie up -all your clothes.’ So I did, and I cried louder than ever about it, and -he says, ‘I guess you han’t got ’em all have ye?’ So he unties my -bundle, and takes all on ’em out one by one, and lays ’em in the berth, -and I cried so you could hear me to the forecastle; and finally he turns -to me a pleasant look and says, ‘Peter put up your clothes; I’ve no idea -of takin’ you back, I’ve done this only to try you; and now I tell you -on the _honor of a man_, as long as you stay with me, and be as faithful -as you have been, nobody shall take you away from me _alive_; and then I -cries ten times worse than ever, I loved the captain so hard. But a -mountain rolled off on me, for I tell you to be took right away in the -bloom of liberty, arter I’d toiled so hard to git it, and then have all -my hopes crushed in a minute, I tell you for awhile I had mor’n I could -waller under. But when I got acquain’ted with the captain, I found him a -rale abolitionist, for he’d fight for a black man any time, and ☞ Oh! -how he did hate slavery: ☜ but then he kind’a loved to run on a body, -and then make ’em feel good agin, and he was always a cuttin’ up some -sich caper as this; but he was a noble man and I love him yit. - -“Now I felt that I was raly free ☜ although I knew Morehouse was a -lurkin’ round arter me: _and arter this I called no man master_, but I -knew how to treat my betters. I now begun to ☞ feel somethin’ like a -man, ☜ and the dignity of a _human bein’_ begun to creep over me, and I -_enjoyed_ my liberty when I got it, I can tell you. I didn’t go a -sneakin’ round, and spirit-broken, as I know every man must, if he’s a -slave; but ☞ I couldn’t help standin’ up straight, arter I knew I was -free. ☜ Oh! what a glorious feelin’ that is! and oh! how I pitied my -poor brethren and sisters, that was in chains. I used to set down and -think about it, and cry by the hour; and when I git to thinkin’ about it -now, I wonder how any good folks, and specially christian people, can -hate abolitionists. ☜ I think it must be owin’ to one of two things; -either they don’t know the horrors or miseries of a slave’s life, or -they can’t have much feelin’; for the anti-slavery society is the only -society I know on, that professes to try to set ’em all free; for you -know the colonization folks have give up the idee long ago, that they -can do any thing of any amount that way; and so they say they are agoin’ -to enlighten Africa. And I can’t for the life on me see how the -abolitionists is so persecuted; it’s raly wonderful! ☜ But I’m glad I -can pray to God for the poor and oppressed, if I am a black man; and I -think it can’t be a long time afore all the slaves go free—there is so -many thousands of christians all prayin’ for it so arnestly; and so many -papers printed for the slave, and so many sarmints preached for him, and -sich a great struggle agoin’ on for him all over creation. Why all this -is God’s movin’s, and nobody can’t stop God’s chariot wheels.” ☜ - -A. “Well, Peter, you’ve come to a stopping place now, and I think we’ll -close this book, for I suppose you’ll have some sea stories to tell.” - -P. “Yis, Domine. I shall have some long yarns to reel off when I gets my -sails spread out on the brine, for I think the rest of my history is no -touch to my sailor’s life. But one thing, it won’t be so sorrowful, if -’tis strange; for, if I was rocked on the wave, I had this sweet thought -to cheer me, as I lay down on my hammock, ☞ _I’m free_; ☜ and dreams of -liberty hung round my midnight pillow, and I was happy, because I was no -longer Peter Wheeler in chains.” - - -------------- - -_Thoughts suggested by the incidents of the First Book._ - -It may be profitable and interesting to notice some of the principles -involved in the foregoing story. The history of Peter Wheeler in Chains, -is a rich chapter in the tale of oppression and slavery in America. The -horrors and barbarities here recorded, ought not to go forth before the -citizens of a free nation, without producing an appropriate and powerful -impression, that will give _impulse_ and triumph to the principles of -our constitution. A few plain thoughts occur to the reader of this -history, which we will notice:— - -I. We see the necessary and legitimate influence of irresponsible power, -upon its possessor and victims. It is one of the broad principles of the -bible, and of our republican government, that it is not safe to place -irresponsible power in the hands of a fallible being, under any -circumstances; for, in every recorded instance of the world’s history, -it has been abused, and produced unmixed misery. - -When young Nero assumed the purple of imperial Rome, his heart revolted -at the thought of tyranny, and when first asked to sign a criminal’s -death-warrant, his hand refused to do its office-work, and he exclaimed, -“Would to God I had never learned to write.” And yet, under the -influence of irresponsible power, he at last became so transformed, that -he illuminated his gardens with the bodies of burning Christians, and -danced to the music of a drunken fiddler while Rome was on fire! As man -is constituted, he is not equal to a possession of unlimited power, -without abusing it. Experience confirms all this, and common sense too. -And if the history of every slaveholder in creation could be unfolded, -we should see that every hour his character acquired new and worse -features. Even if he did not gradually become more hard and tyrannical -in his treatment of his slaves, yet it would be seen that his own heart -was constantly losing its higher and nobler qualities, and the dark -trail of oppression, like the course of the serpent, was leaving its -foul and polluted stain upon all it touched. Slavery _must_ call forth -malignant and unholy passions in the breast, and their repeated exercise -must harden and pollute the heart. It degrades the _whole man_,—for -there is not a faculty or propensity of the being but what is tain’ted -by the foul breath of slavery. The reader must have remarked the steady -and rapid moral defilement which was going on in Peter’s master, till at -last he was plunged into the deepest degradation, which sought _his -death_. Oh! who can conceive of a degradation more complete than that -which made its subject exult in the thought of torturing a poor black -boy, even unto death! There are noble and generous hearts in the South, -who feel, most keenly, the debasing influence of slavery upon the -father’s, and the husband’s, and the lover’s heart; and they are -weeping, in secret places, because every green thing around the social -altar is burned up by this withering blast. The author of this note has -heard the lamentations of daughters and wives, whose homes have been -made desolate by the foul spirit of tyranny, and their longings and -prayers for a brighter day, which shall regenerate the South by -emancipating the slave. Oh! how can man become viler than to hunt down -the poor fugitive slave, like a blood-hound, when he has cast off his -fetters, and is emerging into the light and glory of freedom. The first -impulse of a generous or benevolent heart would be joy, to see the poor -victim break away from his bondage, and go free, in God’s beautiful -world. Let us hear no more of the desire of the South to emancipate -their slaves, when every fugitive is tracked by blood-hounds, till he -crosses the waters of the St. Lawrence, and finds shelter under the -throne of a British Queen. In most instances, slavery will make the -master thirst for the blood of the slave who escapes from his chains; -and let this fact bespeak its influence on his heart. - -II. Opposition to anti-slavery principles, is no new thing under the -sun. We should conclude, from the reasoning of some, in these days, that -all efforts made to suppress slavery, which elicit the opposition of the -South, must be wrong, for, say they, “slavery can be destroyed without -any opposition from the slaveholder!” - -Monstrous!!! what? the most stupendous structure of selfishness and -abominations on earth, be uptorn without opposition or convulsion! As -well may you say, that God could have emancipated the Hebrews, without -exciting so much opposition from their masters! The truth is, that the -doctrine was never broached till these latter days, that freedom could -be achieved without a struggle. As well say that our fathers could have -achieved the independence of ‘76 without opposition. The experiment was -made for twenty years, by colonizationists, to do away with slavery, -without opposition, and, accordingly, they were obliged to mould their -scheme and plans to suit the South, so as to avoid opposition; and the -South succeeded, and gave them a scheme which would transport to a dark, -and desolate, and heathen shore, to die of starvation, four or five -thousand, while the increase was 700,000, ☜ to say nothing of the old -stock on hand. Good reason why the South should not oppose such a plan. -They would display unutterable folly in their opposition. - -_Slavery is one of the strongholds of hell_, and it is not to be torn -down without a struggle, any more than satan will surrender any other -part of his kingdom without opposition. Peter’s master was enraged at -any reproof or interference from others, that came in collision with his -tyranny, and so it is now. - -III. We see, also, that the slave, in all ages, thinks so badly of -slavery, that he is disposed to run away, if he can. This is enough to -say about slavery. Men are not disposed to run away from great -blessings. And yet we are told, constantly, by the South, that the -slaves are contented and happy with their masters. Now, if this is true, -it only makes slavery worse; for what kind of a system is that which -degrades a man so low, and prostrates all his better and more glorious -attributes to such degradation, that _the love of liberty is crushed in -his soul_; that no heaven-directed thought is lifted for the high -enjoyments of an intellectual and bright being; that he is stripped of -all that he received from Jehovah, which elevates him above the worm -that crawls at his feet. Oh! fellow-man beware! if you have succeeded so -completely in defacing the lineaments of divinity in the human soul, -that all the glorious objects of creation will not draw forth from his -bosom a thought or a wish after a brighter abode. If the gay carol of -the wild bird, or the fresh breezes of morning which bring it to his -ear, or the stars of heaven, as they roll in their orbits, or the bright -dashing of the unfettered waters which sweep by, or the playful gambols -of the lamb that skips and plays on their banks; or, above all, if the -spirit of the Eternal Father, which breathes nobility and greatness into -the soul of his children, does not fan the fires of liberty in his -bosom; oh! fellow-man, if you have so completely dashed to oblivion and -nothingness, an immortal spirit, you have done a deed at which all hell -would blush; you have covered the throne of the Eternal in mourning. If -this be true, you are worse than you have ever been described. - -But, Sir, your whole enginery of death has never accomplished such a -total destruction as this. You may have _degraded mind_, and you _have_, -but oh! thanks to God, you have not made such awful havoc with a -deathless spirit as this. No! you have only poured gall into wounded -spirits; you have only torn open deeply lacerated bosoms;—you have only -plucked the most glorious pearl from man’s diadem; you have only heaped -insult upon a son or a daughter of God Almighty, who is redeemed by the -blood of the Lamb;—and your stroke or bolt of woe, that unchained the -spirit, only open a passage-way for it to the gates of eternal glory. -But, you have done enough God knows! You have done enough to heap up -fuel for your own damnation; and encircled by those faggots, “you shall -burn, and none shall quench them,” through eternal ages, unless you are -cleansed by atoning blood. - -The truth is yet to be told. The slave is not contented and happy—more, -no slave in the universe ever was, or can be contented, till God shall -strip him of his divinity which makes him a man. I have conversed with -several thousands in bondage, and many who have got free, and never did -I hear such a sentiment fall from human lips. It is estimated by facts -already in our possession, (viz. the numbers who win their way to -freedom, and those who are advertised as run-aways who are caught,) that -more than fifty thousand slaves attempt their escape from bondage every -year. And yet so anxious are their masters to still bind the chains, -that many of them are chased over one thousand miles. What bare-faced -hypocrisy in a man, to give money to transport to an inhospitable and -barbarous clime, a worn-out slave, and yet to chase _his brother_ one -thousand miles to reduce him again to bondage, or to death!! - -IV. _The low and base meanness of slave-holding._ Nothing is accounted -_meaner_ than theft and _stealing_! ☜ And yet ☞ every slaveholder is -necessarily a constant, and perpetual thief. ☜ He steals the slave’s -body and soul. And if there is one kind of theft which is worse than all -others, it is to steal the wages of the poor, three hundred and -sixty-five days in the year! It would be accounted very mean in a rich -man, to employ a poor day laborer and then follow him to his home at -night, after the toils of the day were over, and steal from his pocket -the price of his day’s labor, which he had paid to him to buy bread for -his children, and such a man would be called a wretch all over the -world;—and yet every slaveholder as absolutely steals the slave’s wages -every night—for he goes to his dwelling and family, if he have one, -pennyless after a day of hard toil. It would be considered the worst -kind of _meanness_ to go, and divide, and separate by an impassable -distance the members of a poor family; and yet not a slave lives in the -South, who has not at some time or other, seen the same barbarous -practice in the circle of his own relationship, and love. - -It is the necessary and legitimate inference of the master, from the -doctrine of _the right of property in man_, that all the slave possesses -or acquires belongs to the one who owns him. Accordingly, Morehouse had -a _perfect right_ to the broadcloth coat which Mr. Tucker gave Peter for -saving the life of his daughter. The whole difficulty, the grand cause -of all the barbarities of slavery, lies in this unfounded and infamous -claim of the right to own, as property, the image of the Great Jehovah. -Destroy this claim, and slavery must cease forever. Acknowledge it in -_any instance_, or _under any circumstances_, and the flood-gate is -flung wide open to the most tyrannical oppression in an hour. This was -illustrated in the case of Dr. Ely, of Philadelphia, who pretended to be -“opposed to slavery as much as any body,” and yet who still main’tained -_that corner-stone principle of tyranny, “that it is right under certain -circumstances to hold man as property.”_ He removed to a slave state, -and found that “these circumstances” occurred. He _bought a slave, -Ambrose_, with, (as he declared,) _benevolent designs_, intending to -spend the avails of his unrequited labor, in buying others to -emancipate. He was expostulated with by his brethren in the ministry, -and out of it, against the _sin of his conduct in owning a fellow-man_, -and making the innocent labor without reward, to free the enslaved. And -“the hire of the laborer which he kept back cried to God.” He was told -of _the danger of owning a man for an hour_, by a keen-sighted editor of -New York; and this same editor uttered a prophecy which seemed almost -like the voice of inspiration, that God would pour contempt upon such an -unholy experiment, “of doing evil that good might come.” But still the -Doctor passed on, and heeded it not. At length, after that prophecy had -been forgotten by all but the friends of the slave, its fulfilment came -from the shores of the Mississippi, and God had blasted the Doctor’s -unrighteous scheme, and his speculations all failed, and poor Ambrose -was sold to pay his master’s debts. ☜ Then the experiment was fairly, -and one would think, _satisfactorily_ made, and the principle was -settled forever by God’s providence, that “_it is wrong under any -circumstances to hold man as property_.” We want the slaveholder to give -up his unholy, and unfounded claim to the image of God, and when he will -practically acknowledge this principle, then he will cease to be a -slaveholder. - -V. We see, in the light of this story, the debasing, degrading, and -withering influence of slavery upon its poor victim. Peter tells the -truth, when he says, “no man can hold up his head _like a man_ if he is -a slave.” Any person who has been on a southern plantation must confess, -that there is a degraded and servile air upon the countenance of all the -slaves. A more abject, low, vacant, inhuman look, cannot be seen in the -face of a being in the world, than you see when you meet a southern -slave. It is not the tame and subdued look of a jaded beast. It is -infinitely more painful to behold a slave than such a spectacle. He -seems to be a man with the soul of a beast; God’s image does not speak -from his dim and lustreless eye, or his lifeless and degraded bearing. -You see a human form, but you cannot see the image of his Maker and -Father there. The slave loses his self-respect, and all regard for his -nature. He is shut out from all the lovely and glorious objects of -creation; and a soul which was made to soar upward in an eternal flight -towards its Sire, is smothered, and debased, and ruined;—its existence -is almost blotted from creation, and when it leaves its abused and -lacerated house of mortality, the world does not feel the loss;—the -departure is unnoticed, except by a few who loved him in life, and are -glad when his pilgrimage is over. The spirit flies, “no marble tells us -whither and he is forgotten, and only a few like himself know that he -ever existed in a green and beautiful world. But “a soul is a deathless -thing,” and that soul shall _speak_ at the last judgment day! It shall -tell its tale of blood to an assembled universe, and that universe shall -pronounce the doom of its murderer. ☜ In forecasting the proceedings of -the last day, I tremble to think I shall be one of its spectators; _not -because I shall be tried_, for I humbly trust I shall have an advocate -there, whose plea the Judge will accept, and whose robe of complete -righteousness shall mantle my naked spirit. But the revelations of that -solemn tribunal, which millions of enslaved Africans shall unfold, will -make the universe turn pale. And I should feel a desire to withdraw -behind the throne, till the sentence had been passed upon all buyers, -and sellers, and owners, of the image of the Omnipotent Judge, and -executed; did I not wish to behold _all the scenes_ of that great day, -and mingle my sympathies with _all the fortunes of that Throne_. For, as -I expect to stand among that mighty company, who shall cluster around -the Judgment Seat, _I do believe, that God’s Book will contain no page -so dark with rebellion and crime, as that which records the story of -American Slavery_! And yet I believe that that Book will embrace the -history of the whole creation. - -VI. We see the glorious and hallowed influence of freedom upon man:— - -No sooner had Peter escaped from chains, than he began to emerge from -degradation into the dignity of a human being. He breathed an inspiring -and ennobling atmosphere; he felt the greatness and glory of immortal -existence steal over him, and his soul, which had been shrouded in -darkness, begun to lift itself up from a moral sepulchre, and feel the -life-giving energy of a resurrection from despair. It must have been so, -for man’s element is freedom, and it cannot live in any other; deprived -of its necessary element, it will languish and die. - -While I am writing this paragraph, Peter Wheeler comes into my room, and -we will hear his own testimony; he says, “Arter I’d got my liberty, I -felt as though I was in a _new world_; although I suffered, for a while, -a good deal, with fear of being catched. - -“When I look back, and think how much I suffered by bein’ beat, and -banged, and whipt, and starved; and then my feelin’s arter I got free, -when I held up my head among men, and nobody pinted at me when I went by -and said, ‘there goes this man’s nigger, or that man’s nigger;’ why, I -can’t describe how I felt for two or three years. I was almost crazy -with joy. What I got for work was _my own_, and if I had a dollar, I -would slap my hand on my pocket and say, ‘_that’s my own_;’ and if I -hauled out my turnip, why it ticked for me and not for master, and ’twas -mine tu when it ticked. And I bought clothes, and good ones, and my own -_arnin’s_ paid for ’em. In fact, I breathed, and thought, and acted, all -different, and it was almost like what a person feels when he is changed -from darkness into light. Besides, when gentlemen and ladies put a -handle to my name, and called me _Mr. Wheeler_, why, for months I felt -odd enough; for you see a slave han’t got no name only ‘nig,’ or ‘cuss,’ -or ‘skunk,’ or ‘cuffee,’ or ‘darkey;’ and then, besides, I was treated -like a man. And if you show any body any kindness, or attention, or good -will, you improve their characters, for you make them respect you, and -themselves, and the whole human race a sight more than ever. Why, -respect and kindness lifts up any body or thing. Even the beast or dog, -if you show ’em a kindness, they never will forgit it, and they’ll strut -and show pride in treatin’ on you well; and pity if man is of sich a -natur’ that he ain’t as noble as that, then I give it up. Why, arter I -come to myself, and I would git up and find all the family as pleasant -as could be, and I would go out and look, and see the sun rise, and hear -the birds sing, and I felt so joyful that I fairly thought my heart -would leap out of my body, and I would turn on my heel and ask myself -‘is this Peter Wheeler, or ain’t it? and if ’tis me, why how changed I -be.’ I felt as a body would arter a long sickness, when they first got -able to be out, and felt a light mornin’ breeze comin’ on ’em, and a -fresh, cool kind of a feelin’ comin’ over ’em; and they would think they -never see any thing, or felt any thing afore, for all seemed brighter -and more gloriouser than ever; and oh! it does seem to me that no -Christian people in the world can help wantin’ to see all free, for -Christians love to see all God’s crutters happy. - -VII. “I b’lieve that one of the wickedest and most awful things in -creation, and the root, and bottom, and heart of all the evil, is -prejudice agin’ color.’ ☜ There is most, or quite as much of this at the -North as there is at the South, for I can speak from experience. There -is that disgrace upon us, that many people think it’s a disgrace to ’em -to have us come into a room where they be, for fear that they will be -_blacked_, or _disgraced_, or _stunk_ up by us poor off-scourin’ of -‘arth. And if I come into a room with a sarver of tea, coffee, rum, -wine, or sich like, they can’t smell any thing; but jist the second I -set down on an equal with ’em, as one of the company, they pretend they -can smell me. But, worse than this, this same disgrace is cast on our -color in the Sanctuary of the Living God. In enemost all the meetin’ -houses, you see the ‘nigger pew;’ and when they come to administer the -Lord’s Supper, they send us off into some dark pew, in one corner, by -ourselves, as though they thought we would disgrace ’em, and stink ’em -up, or black ’em, or somethin.’ Why, ’twas only at the last Sacrament in -our Church this took place. All communicants was axed to come and -partake together, and I come down from the gallery, and as I come into -the door, to go and set down among ’em; one of the elders stretched out -his arm, with an air of disdain, and beckoned me away to a corner pew, -where there was no soul within two or three pews on me, as though he had -power to save or cast off. Now think what a struggle I had, when I sot -down, to git my mind into a proper state for the solemn business I was -agoin to do. - -“First, I thought it was hard for me to be so cast off by my brethren in -the church, and a feelin’ riz, and I fit agin’ it, and, finally, I -thought I could submit to my fate; and I believed God could see me, and -hear my cry, and accept my love, as well there as though I sot in the -midst on ’em. And it is the strangest thing in the world, too, that -Christian people can act so. There must be some of the love of -Christianity wantin’ in their hearts, or they could not treat a brother -in Christ in that way. As I sot there, I thought, ‘can there be any sich -place as a dark-hole, or black pew, or behind the door, or under the -fence, in heaven? If there is sich a spirit or policy there, I don’t -feel very anxious desire to go there.’ The bible says, ‘God is no -respecter of persons.’ ☜ - -“And what is worse than all, this spirit is carried to the graveyard; -and for fear that the dead body of a black man shall black up or -disgrace the body of a white, they go and dig holes round under the -fences, and off in a wet corner, or under the barn, and put all of our -colour in ’em; for every one may be an eyewitness if he’ll go to our -graveyard and others; for I have lived now goin’ on fourteen years in -one place, and any colored person who has been buried at all there, has -been buried all along under the fences, and close up to the old barn -that stands there. I know God will receive the souls of sich, jist as -well as though they was buried in the middle of the yard, but I say -this, to let the reader know what a cruel and unholy thing prejudice -agin color is, and what it will do to us poor black people. - -“Now I know that all this is the reason why the people of our colour -don’t rise any faster. The scorn, the disgrace that every body flings on -’em, keeps ’em down, and they are sinkin’, and such treatment is enough -to sink the Rocky mountains. - -“Now I know from experience, that the better you treat a black man the -better he will behave; for his own pride will keep his ambition up, and -he’ll try to rise; why if you should treat white folks so they’d grow -bad jist as fast. Why, who don’t know that a body will try to git the -good will of those who treat ’em well, so as to make ’em respect ’em -still more? And it’s jist like climbin’ a ladder; you’ll git up a round -any day, but if you keep a knockin’ a man on the head with the club of -prejudice, how in the name of common sense can he climb up. - -“Now this is most as bad as slavery; ☜ for slavery keeps the foot on the -black man’s neck all the time, and don’t let ’em rise at all; and -prejudice keeps a knockin’ on him down as fast as he gits up; and we -ought not to go to the South, till we can git the people of the North to -treat our color like men and women. A good many people oppose -abolitionists, and say, ‘why what will you do with the niggers when they -are free? They will become drunken sots and vagabonds like our niggers -at the North; why don’t _they_ rise?’ I can answer that question in a -hurry! The reason is, because they don’t give us the same chance with -white folks; they won’t take us into their schools and colleges, and -seminaries, and we don’t be allowed to go into good society to improve -us; and if we set up business they won’t patronize us; they want us to -be barbers, and cooks and whitewashers and shoeblacks and ostlers, -camp-cullimen, and sich kind of mean low business. We ain’t suffered to -attend any pleasant places, or enjoy the advantages of debating schools -and libraries, and societies, &c. &c., and all these things is jist what -improves the whites so fast. And if we by hook or by crook git into any -sich place, why some feller will step on our toes, and give us a shove, -and say, ‘stand back nig, you can see jist as well a little furder off. - -“Now all these things is what keeps us so much in the back ground; for -if we have a chance, we git up in the world as fast as any body. For -there _is_ smart and respectable colored folks; and you sarch out their -history, and you’ll find that they once had a good chance to git -larnin’, and they jumped arter it. I think one of the greatest things -the abolition folks should be arter, is to help the free people of color -to git up in the world, and grow respectable, and educated, and then we -will prove false what our enemies say, ‘that we are better off in chains -than we be in freedom.’” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK THE SECOND - - ---------- - - PETER WHEELER ON THE DEEP. - - - - - CHAPTER I. - -Beginning of sea stories—sails with Captain Truesdell for the - West-Indies—feelings on leaving the American shore—sun-set at - sea—shake hands with a French frigate—a storm—old Neptune—a bottle or - a shave—caboose—Peter gets two feathers in his cap—St. - Bartholomews—climate—slaves—oranges—turtle—a small pig, “but dam’ - old”—weigh anchor for New York—“sail ho!”—a wreck—a sailor on a - buoy—get him aboard—his story—gets well, and turns out to be an - enormous swearer—couldn’t draw a breath without an oath—approach to - New York—quarantine—pass the Narrows—drop anchor—rejoicing times—Peter - jumps ashore “a free nigger.” - - -_Author._ “Where do you hail from to day, Peter?” - -_Peter._ “From the street, where I’ve found some folks that makes me -feel bad.” - -A. “What now, Peter?” - -P. “Why, there’s some folks that feels envious and flings this in my -face—’Oh! you’ve got to be a mighty big nigger lately, han’t ye? and -you’re agoin’ to have your life wrote.’ And this comes principally from -people of my own colour, only now and then a white person flings in -somethin’ to make it go glib; but the white folk round here generally -treat me very kindly.” - -A. “Well, don’t revenge yourself, Peter; bear it like a man and a -christian. Now let us launch out on the deep.” - -P. Well, we’ll weigh anchor,—but it won’t do for me to tell every thing -that happened to me in my sea v’iges, for ‘twould fill fifty books; and -so I’ll only tell some things that always seemed to please folks more’n -the rest: - -I followed the North River all that summer I run away, and in the fall -of that year Captain John Truesdell sold his sloop and engaged to go out -to sea as master of a large vessel for a company of New York merchants. - -“So, on the 22d of October, 1806, at nine o’clock we weighed anchor for -St. Bartholomews, and bore away for the Narrows. Arter we’d got out some -ways, I turned back to take one look at my old native land, and I felt -kind’a streaked, and sorry and grieved, and you may say I felt kind’a -rejoiced tu, for if I was a goin’ away from home and country, out on the -wide waters, I’d got my liberty, and was every day gettin’ it -_stronger_. - -“We had a fine ship; she was one of the largest vessels in port, and she -carried twenty guns, for she was rigged to sail for any port, and fight -our own way. We had thirty-seven able-bodied men besides officers; and -in all, with some officers, about fifty men aboard. When we’d been out -nearly two days, towards night, we looked off ashore, and the land -looked bluer and bluer, till all on it disappeared, and nothin’ could be -seen but a wide waste of waters, blue as any thing, and the sun set jist -as though it fell into a bed of gold; and when the moon riz she looked -jist as though she come up out of the ocean; and the next mornin’, when -the mornin’ star rose, he looked like a red hot cinder out of a furnace. -Well, we all looked till we got out of sight of land, and then some went -to cryin’ and _I_ felt rather ticklish; but most on us went to findin’ -out some amusements. The sails was all filled handsome, and she bounded -over the waters jist like a bird. Some on us went to playin’ cards, some -dice, and some a tellin’ stories, and he that told the fattest story was -the best feller. - -“Next day ’bout nine in the mornin’, we spied a French frigate on our -larboard bow, bearin’ right down upon us, and first she hailed, “ship -ahoy!” Captain answered, and the frigate’s captain says, “what ship?” -“Sally Ann, from New York.” The Frenchman hollered, “drop your peak and -come under our lee.” And he did, and he come on board our ship with -twelve men, and captain took ’em down into the cabin, and hollers for -me, and says, ‘bring twelve bottles of madeira;” and so I did, and -stepped back and listened, and there they talked and jabbered, and I -couldn’t understand ’em any more’n a parcel of skunk blackbirds; but our -captain could talk some French. Well, they stayed aboard I guess, two -hours, and examined the ship all through, and then they left, and -boarded their ship, and they fired us two guns, and we answered ’em with -two stout ones, and then we bore off under a stiff breeze. This is what -sailors calls shakin’ hands, and wishin’ good luck, this firin’ salutes. - -“The fifth day about ten o’clock A.M. there comes up a tremendous -thunder storm, and the waves run mountain high, and it blowed as though -the heavens and arth was a comin’ together; and the wind and storm riz -till two o’clock in the arternoon, and _increased_; and we drew an ile -cloth over the hatch comin’s and companion way. And all the sails was -took down, every rag on ’em, and we sailed under bare poles; and the log -was flung out, and we found we was a runnin’ at the rate of fifteen -knots an hour; and there come a sea and swept every thing fore and aft, -and it took me, for I’d just come out of my caboose, and swept my feet -right from under me, but I hung fast to the shrouds; and there wave -arter wave beat agin us, and swept over us clean. And oh! dear me suz, -the lightnin’ struck on the water and sissed like hot iron flung in, and -the thunder crashed like a fallin’ mountain, and the sailors acted some -on ’em pretty decent, and the rest on ’em like crazy folks. They ripped, -and swore, and cussed, and tore distressedly; and one old feller up -aloft reefin’ sail, his head was white as flax, cussed his Maker, ‘cause -he didn’t send it harder. - -“Oh! how I trembled when I heard him! Why he scart me a thousand times -worse than the lightnin’. ‘Bout nine at night we tries the pumps, and -finds three feet water in the bold, and then eight men went to pumpin’ -till the pumps sucked, and the captain looked pretty serious I tell ye; -and ’bout twelve o’ clock the storm went down, and all was quiet, only -the sea, and that was distressedly angry; and the next mornin’ ’twas as -calm, as the softest evenin’ ye ever see. - -“Captain comes round and says, ‘boys, old Neptune will be round to-day, -and make every one pay his bottle or be shaved,’ and sure enough, ’bout -eleven the old feller comes aboard with an old tarpaulin hat on, and his -jacket and breeches all tore to strings, and the water running off on -him, and says, ‘captain you got any of my boys aboard?’ ‘Yis, here’s -one;’ and he p’inted at _me_. ‘Well boy, what have you got for me -to-day?’ ‘A bottle of wine,’ says I; and he says ‘now I’m goin’ to swear -you by the crook of your elbow, and the break of the pump, that you will -let no man pass without a bottle or a shave.’ So he goes round to all on -board and then goes away. The captain told me he was ‘old Neptune, and -lived in the ocean;’ but I was detarmined to foller him; so on I goes -arter him, and I finds him snug hid under the cathead a changin’ his -clothes, and then he comes on deck, and I charged him that he was the -old Neptune, and finally he confessed it, and said ’twas the way all old -sailors did to make every raw hand, when they got to sich a spot in the -ocean, pay his bottle or be shaved with tar, soap, and an iron razor. - -“Along in the day, captain calls all hands on deck, and says, ‘we’ve had -a pretty hard time boys, and new we’ll rig a new caboose, and clear up, -and then we’ll splice the main brace and ’twas done quick and well, _for -grog was ahead_. - -“The captain says to me, ‘now cook, you go down and draw that ten quart -pail full of wine, and give every man a half a pint; and drink and be -merry boys, but let no man get drunk. Well, I got a good supper, and -arter that a jollier set of fellers you never seed. We was runnin’ under -a stiff breeze from N. W. and all sails well filled; and we had sea -stories, and songs, and music, and all kinds of amusements, and the -captain was as jolly as any body. - -“Well, arter bedtime, the captain says, ‘cook, you must be my watch -to-night,’ and he comes and tells me jist how to manage the helm; and he -turns in, and I managed it _well_, for I’d managed his old sloop on the -river, but this was somethin’ more of a circumstance; and afore the -watch was up, I got so I could manage a ship as well as the fattest on -’em, and a tickelder feller you never see. - -“In the mornin’ the hands praised me up; and the captain says, ‘why, -he’s the best man aboard, for he can do _my duty_;’ and that made me -feel good, and I got two considerable feathers in my cap that time. - -“But I must hurry on. We made St. Bartholomews in nineteen days from New -York, and sold cargo, and took in a load for Porto Rico, and there -filled up with sugar and molasses, and put out for New York. The climate -there was hot enough to scorch all the wool off a nigger’s head. The -fever was ragin’ dreadfully in another part of the island, and we -didn’t, any on us, pretend to go ashore much. The sand was so hot at -noon ‘twould burn your feet, and the white inhabitants didn’t go out at -all in the middle of the day; but the niggers didn’t seem to mind the -heat at all; bare-footed, bare-headed, and half-naked; yis, more’n halt -a considerable, and it seemed the hotter it was the better they liked -it. But they suffered a good deal, and they’d come aboard our ship and -try to make thick with the crew. They talked a broken lingo, kind’a -Ginney, I s’pose; and they called white folks ‘buddee,’ and they’d say, -‘buddee give eat, and I give buddee orange.’ And so at night, they’d -fetch their oranges aboard, and give a heap on ’em for a few -sea-biscuit, and I tell ye, them oranges wan’t slow. One night, five or -six on ’em fetched a big sea turkle aboard, and we bought him and paid a -kag of biscuit for him, and he weighed two hundred and seventy pounds, -and the fellers seemed dreadfully rejoiced, and patted their lips and -bellies, and laughed, and kissed the captain’s feet, and laughed and -seemed tickled enough, and off they went. Next day another feller come -aboard, and says, ‘Cappy, you buy fat pig?’ ‘Yis, and when will you -bring him?’ ‘Mornin’ Cappy.’ So, in the mornin’ he come aboard with his -pig; he was small, but _terrible fat_; and so the captain pays him and -looks at him, and says, ‘Jack, your pig is small.’ ‘Oh! massa, he’s -small, but _dam old_.’ Oh! how the captain laughed! and he used that for -a bye-word all the v’yge. - -“Well, we cooked the turkle, and sich meat I never see; there was all -kinds on it, and if we didn’t live fat for some days I miss my guess. I -was a goin’ to throw the shell overboard, but the captain hollered and -stopped me, and so he saved it and sold it in New York for a good sight -of money; and finally, arter bein’ in the islands some time, we weighed -anchor for New York. - -“We’d got ’bout half way home, and one day the cabin boy was aloft, and -he cries out, ‘Sail ho!’ - -“‘Where away?’ ‘Over the starboard quarter.’ - -“‘How big?’ ‘As big as a pail of water.’ - -“‘Bear down to her, helmsman, and yon cook, bring my big glass.’ So I -brings it, and ’twas a big jinted thing, and ‘twould bring any thing -ever so fur off as nigh as you pleased. Captain looks and says, ‘It’s a -man on a buoy.’ And as we got nearer, sure enough we could see him; and -the captain cries, ‘down with the small boat, man her strong, put out -for him and handle him carefully.’ And bein’ pretty anxious, I was the -first man aboard, and we come along side on him and lifts up his head, -and he says in a weak voice, ‘Oh! my God’ don’t hurt me!!’ And we lifts -him up, and still he hangs to the buoy, and we told him to let go. And -he says, ‘I will, if you won’t let me fall;’ and we told him we -wouldn’t, and he let go reluctantly, and we took him in; and his breast, -where he lay on the buoy, was _worn to the bone_, where he’d hugged it, -and the motion of the waves had chafed him so. Well, we got him down in -a berth, and the captain tries to talk with him, but he couldn’t speak, -and we changes all the clothes on him that was left, and feeds him with -cracker and wine; and the captain sets and feels of his pulse, and says -once in a while, ‘he’s doin’ well’: and then he fell asleep, and slept -an hour as calm as a baby, and the captain told me to wash him in -Castile soap-suds, and says he, ‘we’ll have a new sailor in a hurry.’ - -“I prepares my wash and he wakes up, and says, ‘how in the name of God -did I come here?’ so we told him, and the captain says, ‘you hungry?’ -‘Yis.’ And I fed him a leetle more and washed him; and oh! how he swore, -it smarted so. ‘Where’s the captain,’ says he. ‘Here.’ ‘_Captain, have -you got any rum?_’ ☜ And so he ordered him some weak sling, and arter -this he seemed a good deal stronger, and then the captain sets his chair -down by him, and asks him who he was and where he come from? - -“He says, ‘my name is Tom Wilson, and I was born in Bristol, England, -and lived there till I was sixteen, and then sailed for Boston, and -followed the seas twenty years, and at last was pressed aboard an -English man of war in London. I escaped, and got on board a French ship, -and started for America in a merchantman. We’d made ’bout half v’yge -when a tremendous storm riz, and we was stove all to pieces, and every -body and every thing went down, for all I know, and I took to a big cork -buoy as my only hope. The last I see of the wreck was two days arter -this. Well, I hung to my buoy, and floated on, and on, and it got, calm, -and it got to be the fifth day, and I thought I must give up. I lost all -sense enemost, and didn’t know what did happen, till I beard your boat -come up, and then my heart fluttered; and now is the first time for days -I know what I am about. And this is the second time I have been cast -away and not a man aboard saved but myself. How long I was aboard the -buoy arter I lost my sense, I can’t say, but it seems to me it was -_some_ days, but I an’t sartin. Now captain, if I get well, make me one -of your men.’ - -“The captain says, ‘I will, Tom.’ - -“Well, he got up fast, and eat up ‘most all creation, he was so nigh -starved; and when he got able to work ship-tackle, he turns out to be a -great sailor, but an awful wicked man, for every breath heaved out an -oath. - -“Well, in twenty-one days from the West-Indies, we made the New York -Light, and then there was rejoicin’ enough I tell ye. I know I was glad -enough, and as soon as we got hauled up, I jumped ashore and the first -thing says I, - -“Here’s a Free Nigger.” ☜ - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II. - -Peter spends the winter of 1806–7 in New York; sails in June in the - Carnapkin for Bristol; a sea tempest; ship becalmed off the coast of - England; catch a shark and find a lady’s hand, and gold ring and - locket in him; this locket, &c. lead to a trial, and the murderer - hung; the mother of the lady visits the ship; sail for home; Peter - sails with captain Williams on a trading voyage; Gibralter; - description of it; sail to Bristol; chased by a privateer; she - captured by a French frigate; sail for New York; Peter lives a - gentleman at large in “the big city of New York.” - - -_Author._ “What did you do in New York, Peter?” - -_Peter._ “We laid by and unrigged for winter, and the captain sent to -Troy and had his family brought down to the city, and I lived in his -family that winter as servant; and I had fine times tu, for he was a -noble man, and lived as independent as a prince, in Broadway, nigh where -the Astor House stands. I had a fine winter of it, and come spring he -hired the Carnapkin, one of the biggest and best ships in port, and all -rigged. We weighed anchor for Bristol, and this was rare sport for me, -for we was a goin’ to see old John Bull. - -“When we’d been out about seven or eight days, we was overhauled by a -tremendous storm from the north-east; and it grew worse and worse, and -about midnight she lay on her beam ends for some time, and we expected -to go to pieces; and the second mate sounded the hold and found four -feet water in her, and that started the hair. We got the pumps a goin’ -and pretty soon the captain hollers out, ‘she rights,’ and glad enough -we was; and the carpenter found her leak, and makes all tight, and by -next day all was clear as a bell. The captain found himself off of his -course over two hundred miles, and so he hauls on agin; and in about -twenty days we made sight of the white coast of old England, and there -we was becalmed for two days, and didn’t stir a mile. - -“The captain says, ‘now boys, you may go and fish till we git a breeze.’ -Well, we hadn’t been out long afore we fell foul of a shark, and the -first thing he knowed he had the harpoon in him, and we got him aboard, -and then we calculated on a great hurrah, and sure enough we did have a -_melancholy_ one tu. The captain says, ‘now let’s have his liver -cooked,’ for you see a shark’s liver is a great dish at sea. And so I -goes to work and cuts him open, and what do you think I found there? - -“Why the first thing I found was the _hand of a human person_, and on -the middle finger was a gold ring, and on it ’twas wrote who she was in -Spanish characters. The captain stands by and says, ‘dig carefully a -leetle furder and see what you find.’ So on I dug with my butcher-knife, -and up comes a gold chain; and I pulled away and out come a gold locket, -and it had a lock of hair in it, and a name on it. We hunted along and -found human bones, and nails of fingers partly _dissolved_. - -“Well, the captain sings out, ‘fling the monster overboard, for we won’t -have any thing aboard that devours human flesh; and cook you clean that -locket and hand, &c., as clean as you can.’ And so I did, and the hand -we preserved in rum, and the captain kept all of ’em till we got to -port, and then we found out the end on it, and all about it. - -“Well, we made port, and then the captain advertises the story of the -shark; and the day arter this there come a splendid carriage to the -dock, and who should it be but a Spanish lady, and she was in great -splendor tu, and she comes aboard and calls for the captain; and he -waits upon her with great respect down into the cabin, and her servant -goes down with her, and she spoke in broken English, and asks him all -about the shark, and then he tells all about it, and then showed her the -hand; and when I brought it she broke out into ‘my God!’ and she seemed -to be grieved and vexed, and broken down, and yit spunky by turns; and -then she’d say, as she looked at the locket and hand and ring, ‘sacra -venga,’ and swear, and her face would look red and pale by turns; and -finally she turns to the captain and says, ‘Sir, this was my child,’ and -says she ‘there was a young Spaniard engaged to my daughter, and they -walked out one evening towards the water-side, and that’s the last I’ve -heard of my child till now. He went to his own lodgings that night and -was inquired of for her, but give no answer, and they made great sarch -for her, but nothin’ could we hear. It always seemed to me he killed -her, but I couldn’t git any evidence of it, and so I let it rest, and -this happened nearly two weeks ago, and to day, you and your crew must -come up and testify to the whole transaction.’ So she left. - -That arternoon, four gentlemen come in a coach to the ship, and we had -to go up to the City Hall, I guess ’twas; a large stone building, and it -had great pillars in front on it, and I looked at it _good_ I tell you, -for ’twas the handsomest buildin’ I ever see. So we got there, and they -put us all into a room and locked us up; and we stayed there till two -o’clock, and then a man come and took out the captain, and then me, and -I was sworn, and told the whole story; and then all the crew was fetched -on, and testified the same thing; and the cabin-boy, when he finished -his testimony, says, ‘and I believe this lady was killed and flung -overboard by some body,’ and he said it with some courage, tu; and at -that a young Spaniard of a dark complexion and long black eyebrows that -come round under a curl at the corner of his eye, and oh! how black his -eye was, and he had long mustaches on his upper lip, and a big pair of -whiskers, and I tell you he looked as though he could murder as easy as -you could eat a meal of victuals. But he looked kind’a chopfallen, and -up he got, and says he, ‘I’m the man—I flung her off the wharf, and I -give myself up to the law;’ you see he had been taken and brought to the -bar. Then the king’s Attorney Gineral, spoke to this prisoner, and I -tell you he was dressed splendidly. He had on an elegant blue coat and -satin vest, and black satin pantaloons, and buff pumps, and he had on a -girdle of red morocco, and it had a gold plate in front, and it had a -big star on it, and his head was powdered in great style, and he fixes -his eyes on the Spaniard like a blaze of fire, and says, ‘prisoner, -deliver up that knife in your sleeve;’ and at that the Spaniard slips a -ribbon off of his wrist and drew out a knife like what we call a Bowie -knife in this country, and handed it to the Attorney, and I tell ye if -the Spaniard didn’t look beat! - -“And then his lawyer got up and made a smart plea for him and set down; -but then you might know he was a rowin’ agin the tide, for he was a -pleadin’ for the devil himself. - -“Then the Attorney Gineral got up, and says, ‘My Lords and Judges, and -Gentlemen of the Jury, &c. &c.’ And if he didn’t make a splendid plea -then I’m no judge—I once could tell all about it, for you see I was all -ear when them big fellers spoke and we all talked it over on the v’yge -so much, and what one forgot ‘tother recollected, and then besides ’twas -published in the Bristol papers; and once I could say it all to a T, and -I only wish I could remember it word for word, it would be sich great -stuff for this book. But my memory has kind’a failed me for a few years; -only I know the Gineral made all on us cry, he talked so fine, and I do -remember the closin’ off sayin’. ‘My Lords, I have now finished the -defence for the crown, and I submit the case to your lordships, feeling -that your verdict will respect the rights of the throne and the -liberties and safety of its loyal subjects. My Lords I have done.’ And -down he sat. - -“And there that big room—it was as big as the whole of our big red -barn—was crowded full as it could stick and hold, and there was a’most -all nations on ‘arth there. And I tell you if I didn’t feel fine to git -up afore my lords, (as that ere Attorney Gineral called ’em,) and all -them big bugs, and tell about that poor lady there; _and there agin I -was treated better than I ever was in an American court in my life; for -I never got up in a court room in this country to give testimony or see -a black man, who warn’t rather laughed at by somebody_. Well, when the -Attorney Gineral had finished, three of these ’ere lords I tell on went -into another room, and stayed there a few minutes, and come back, and -then the chief lord of the establishment got up, and drew on a kind of a -black cap, and commanded the attention of all present, and the room was -so still you could hear a pin drop. The prisoner was fetched forward, -and the Judge turns to him and says:— - -“‘By the testimony of Captain Truesdell and crew, and by your own -confession, I find you, accordin’ to the laws of our king and country, -_guilty_ of this murder; and have you any thing to offer why sentence of -death should not be pronounced upon you?’ The Spaniard shook his head, -and then the Judge pronounced his doom. - -“‘In the Name of the King of the Realm, and by the Authority of Almighty -God, I sentence you to be executed this evening at half-past six -o’clock, until you are _dead_, DEAD, DEAD; and may God have mercy on -your soul.’ - -“Well, the sheriff took the prisoner and ordered us to be sent back in a -large carriage and four milk white horses to the ship. - -Next mornin’ at ten o’clock the Spanish lady came aboard, and went down -in the cabin with the captain, and sot there and talked a good while -about the affair, and cried a good deal, and when she got up she put her -hand into her little huzzy and took out twenty doubloons, and give ’em -to the captain, and told him to divide that with his crew, and she calls -for me and gives me a half-joe, and says she, ‘I give you that for bein’ -so good as to find my darter,’ and she went off, and I had a doubloon -and a half-joe, and that night we heard the Spaniard was hung. - -“Well, we lay in port about four weeks, and we had fine times and see a -good many big characters, and I was in England arter this, and I see -some of the biggest kind of bugs they got, and I’ll tell about that when -I git to it. Well, we took in a load of goods, and weighed anchor for -home, and had as fine a passage as ever was sailed over the brine. We -made New York and the hands was all paid off, and I had one hundred and -sixty dollars in specie except a little on the Manhattan Bank. Then I -quit Captain Truesdell, and he gin me a recommend, and I hired to -Captain James Williams, and we hadn’t been in port but four weeks afore -I sailed with him for Gaudaloupe. We started in November, on Sunday -mornin’ jist as the bells begun to ring for church, and weighed anchor -for the West Indies, and then I see the difference atwixt the sailor’s -Sunday and a Yorker’s, and it made me feel kind’a serious and rother -bad. - -“The captain had started on a tradin’ and carryin’ v’yge; so when we’d -cruised round some months in the West Indies, we took a load and sailed -for Gibralter, and if that Gibralter warn’t a pokerish lookin’ place I -never see one. We come into the bay and cast anchor under the fort, and -they fired three guns over our ship, as a shakin’ hands, to let us know -we was welcome, and then the captain and officers had to go ashore and -account for themselves. As we lay there and looked up, we could see -three tiers of cannon one above another, and soldiers with blue coats -trimmed with red, and horseskin caps (as I calls them) paradin’ there. -And as soon as the captain got leave of tradin’ back and forth from the -governor, all these ’ere cannons was drawn back. - -“The English colors way flyin’ from the top of the Rock, and at twelve -o’clock every day the drums beat, and they played what they called ‘The -roast beef of old England.’ In the mornin’ the revelie beat and six -cannon was fired from the fort, and if any armed ships lay in the harbor -they answered ’em; and every single hour in the night we could hear the -sentinel’s heavy tread on the Rock, and his cry, ten o’clock and all’s -well, eleven o’clock and all’s well, &c., and so he kept it up all -night. Some on ’em told me they’d had distressed times round the old -Rock afore this. About the time of our Revolutionary War the French and -Spaniards leagued together and got hundreds of ships and thousands of -sogers together, and battered away at the old fort, and shot more _red -hot_ cannon balls agin it than you could shake a stick at; but they only -went ‘_bum, bum_,’ and shivered the Rock a little, and fell down into -the sea, and they attacked the fort on the land side and worked away -there, day arter day, but they didn’t hurt a hair of the old Rock’s -head, and finally they agreed to quit it.—Why Sir, all the nations on -the globe could not take that fort. The English will always have it till -the end of the world. Well I looked up through the straits, and it did -look beautiful; I could see the African shore; yis, the same Africa -where so many millions of my poor brothers and sisters had been stole -and carried off into slavery—oh! I felt bad. Well, we sold our load of -provisions to the governor of the Rock, and bought a few things and -started for England. - -“When we’d been out four days we was chased by a privateer, and once -they got in a quarter of a mile on us, but we had the most canvass, and -we histed the sky scrapers, moon rakers, and star gazers, and water -sail, and a good wind. But they fired on us all the time they was near -enough. They chased us two days, and then we fell in with a French -frigate, and they hailed us, and wanted to know if we’d seen a privateer -along the coast, and so the captain told all about it and they gin three -cheers and bore away arter her. - -“In a few hours we heard a dreadful cannonadin’, and a great cloud of -smoke riz out of the sea, and we concluded they’d overhauled her, and we -left her in good hands. We sailed on for Bristol, and arter we’d been -there five days, the news come that a French frigate had captured a -Spanish privateer, but didn’t take any of her crew, for no sooner than -they found themselves taken than they blew up their ship. - -“We stayed in Bristol some time, and started at last for New York. On -our passage out, we come across a wreck, and we sailed within forty rods -on her, and sent out a small boat, and there warn’t a livin’ soul aboard -to tell the story, and there she lay bottom side up, and as handsome a -copper bottom as ever you see; but we couldn’t do any thing with her, -and so we left her and sailed on. - -“About a week arter, we was a sailin’ along afore a pleasant breeze, and -the moon shinin’ on the waters, and they looked like melted silver, the -first thing we knew up come a seventy-four gun ship right alongside, her -guns run out, and men standin’ with burnin’ torches jist ready to fire, -and we felt streaked enough, for we expected to be blown up every -minute, and there we stood a tremblin’ and didn’t dare to say one word; -and she passed right by and never fired a pistol, and in one minute she -was out of sight—she come and she went and that’s all you can say. Now -that’s what the sailors call ‘_the phantom ship_.’ You see there’s no -ship about it, only some curious appearances on the sea, that always -scares sailors, and makes them think they are a goin’ to be captured. -Well, we had a fine v’yge home, and made the New York light the first of -November, arter a cruise of nearly twelve months. I didn’t like Captain -Williams, and I quit him, and he paid me off one hundred and fifteen -dollars, and I had now two hundred and fifty dollars, and I kept it -safe. And a part of the time I went round New York with a saw-buck on my -shoulder, and part of the time I was a gentleman at large in the big -city—and so I spent that winter. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER III. - -Peter sails for Gibralter with Captain Bainbridge—his character—horrible - storm—Henry falls from aloft and is killed—a funeral at sea—English - lady prays—Gibralter and the landing of soldiers—a frigate and four - merchantmen—Napoleon—Wellington and Lord Nelson—a slave ship—her - cargo—five hundred slaves—a wake of blood fifteen hundred - miles—sharks eat ’em—Amsterdam—winter there—Captain B. winters in - Bristol—Dutchmen—visit to an old battle field—stories about - Napoleon—Peter falls overboard and is drowned, _almost_—make New York - the fourth of July—Peter lends five hundred dollars and loses it—sails - to the West Indies with Captain Thompson—returns to New York and - winters with Lady Rylander—sails with Captain Williams for - Gibralter—fleet thirty-seven sail—cruise up the Mediterranean—Mt. - Etna—sails to Liverpool—Lord Wellington and his troops—war between - Great Britain and the United States—sails for New York and goes to sea - no more—his own confessions of his character—dreadful wicked—sings a - sailor song and winds up his yarn. - - -_Peter._ “The next spring in the fore part of May, I saw Captain -Bainbridge on the Battery, and he hails me and says, ‘don’t you want a -berth for a summer v’ge? I says, ‘yis Sir,’ and then we bargains about -wages; and I was to have twenty-five dollars a month, and he told me to -go to the Custom-house in the mornin’; and so I did, and several others -he’d seen, and we all hired out, and he gin me a steward’s perquisites -and twenty-five dollars a month. So we goes aboard his fine new ship -jist built in New Bedford, and ’twas one of the best I ever see; and she -was to sail in a week on Monday, and all on us agreed to be aboard, by -ten o’clock; and by ten o’clock all on us was there to a man, and we -received our orders, and they was mazin’ strict, for he was the -strictest captain I ever sailed under, but a fine feller with all—sound, -good hearted and a hail feller well met. - -“We all hands stood on deck, and a sight of passengers, and we’d bid our -wives and sweethearts all farewell, and at twelve o’clock, noon, we -weighed anchor for Gibralter. The pilot took us out to sea—she was a -little steamboat, for only two or three years afore this, Fulton got his -steamboat invented on the Hudson. Well she left us ’bout three o’clock -and bid us all ‘good bye;’ and a nice evenin’ breeze sprung up, and we -spread all sail and cut the waves like any thing. And so ’bout midnight -I goes on deck, and looked and looked ashore, but the shore of my -country was hid, for we’d moved on so brisk, it had disappeared. We had -a beautiful time till we’d sailed eight days; and one day afterwards the -breeze grew stronger, and the moon shone and played over the waters, -till it looked like silver; and such an evenin’ I hardly ever see be at -sea. - -“Well next day, at one o’clock, a dark awful cloud riz up out of the -northeast, and it got so the lightnin’ played along the edge of the -cloud pretty briskly afore it covered the sun. The thunder rattled like -great chariots over a great stone pavement. Captain orders all hands to -their posts, and begun to reef and make all fast, and cover the hatches, -and prepare for a storm. Finally the cloud covered the whole face of the -heavens, and the captain says ‘attention all hands! Now fellow sailors -be brave, we’ve got a new ship and her riggin’ will slack some, and we -don’t know how she’ll work; but stick to your posts, and by the help of -God, we’ll weather the storm.’ - -“Well the storm increased, and we kept a reefin’; for you see I used to -be ’bout as much of a sailor as any on ’em, and in a storm there warn’t -much to be cooked till ’twas over. And I quit the caboose, and was in -the riggin’ and all round the sap works till it abated. While we was a -takin’ a double reef on the main sail of the mizzen mast, there was a -boy by the name of Henry Thomson, the captain’s boy, who went up aloft -with an old sailor, to larn to take a reef-plat, and by misfortune, one -of the foot-ropes gin way, and the little feller _fell_ and struck on -the quarter-deck railin’, and left part of his brains there, and his -body went overboard; and we was agoin’ so fast, we couldn’t ’bout and -get him, and we had to leave the poor feller to find companions in the -deep. _Oh! he was a noble boy_ and I felt so arter it, that I always -thought of this varse of an old sailor song. - - ‘Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away, - And still the vast waters above thee shall roll, - Earth loses thy pattern, for ever and aye, - Oh! sailor boy! sailor boy! peace to thy soul.’ - -“Well we sailed on, and the storm increased till midnight; and oh! how -the ocean did look! It seemed as though it was all a blaze of fire, and -the ship couldn’t keep still one second. She pitched and tumbled about -like a drunken man, and yit every thing held as strong as iron; and so -’bout one o’clock at night, the storm passed off ’bout as quick as it -had come, and as soon as any light appeared in the heavens, the captain -says, ‘cheer up boys! the storm is agoin’ over and all hands to _bunk_, -only the watch.’ - -“In the mornin’ it was as clear and pleasant as clear could be, only the -sea was dreadful rough; for you know it takes the sea a good while to -git calm arter a storm; but we gits breakfast and she grows kind’a -calmish, and then the captain comes on deck and tells one of the hands -to go and git a canvass sack and sow it up, and put a stick in it, and a -cannon ball at each end; and then he orders a plank lashed to the side -of the ship, with one end slantin’ down to the water, and calls ‘all -hands ‘tention,’ and then asks, ‘is there any body aboard that feels as -though he could pray?’ And it was as still as death, and all looked at -one another, and nobody answered; for you see in all that company of -’bout fifty, nobody could pray to his God. And all was awful, for I tell -ye what ’tis Domine, it’s a pretty creepy feelin’ gits hold on a body, -if they knows that nobody round ’em can pray! ☜ - -“But in the suspense there steps out an elderly English lady, and she -said ‘Let us pray! Oh! thou who stillest the waves, &c.’ And so she went -on and if she didn’t make the best prayer I ever heard afore or since, -and she made a beautiful address to us, and she did talk enough to move -the heart of a stone, and with tears in her eyes; and she reproved us -for _swearin’_ so. And while she was a talkin’ and prayin’ so, there lay -the like of that beautiful boy cold in death, and I tell ye it made us -_cry some_ and _feel a good deal_. Well we made as though we put Henry -in that sack, and put him on the plank, and let him slide off into the -ocean, and when he sunk it seemed as though my heart went into the sea -arter him. - -“Well the spot where his brains lay there on the deck, stayed there as -long as I stayed aboard that ship; and I used to stand there and watch -it at evenin’, and cry and cry; and I guess if all the tears I shed had -been catched, they’d a filled a quart cup; but I couldn’t help it, for -he was a noble boy, and I loved him like a brother. But we sailed on and -left Henry behind us, and the thoughts on him sometimes checked our glee -and sin, but only for a little while, and all on board soon forgot him, -only me. But oh! how I did love that boy. ☜ - -“Well we made Gibralter in thirty-six days from New York, and as we -lowered sail and cast anchor under the old fort, they fired six cannon -over our mast, and the English officer comes aboard, and three of his -aids, and the ship and cargo and all her writings was examined, and -findin’ all right side up, he gin us permission to come ashore and do -business; and the governor bought our load of provisions for the navy -sarvice, and we got an extra price ‘case ’twas _scarce_; and while we -lay there, there was four English gun-ships of the line come in -freighted with soldiers from Plymouth, in England, and they was under -the convoy of Admiral Emmons; and they left their soldiers and took some -on the rock, and when they come in sight, if there warn’t some music and -some smoke. All the instruments used in the English navy was played on -the ships, and they fired gun arter gun, from the ships to the fort, and -the fort to the ships, and every round they fired, they beat the English -revelie, and oh! how them cannon shook the ship under us, and the smoke -was so thick, you could fairly cut it; and so they kept it up, and I -tell ye they had jolly times enough. - -“Next day they begun to land their recruits, rank and file by companies, -and as one company from the ship marched up the rock to the top of the -fort, another company from the rock would march down aboard the ship, -and in this way we see a heap on ’em landed and shipped. And there stood -the Royal band all day in plain sight; and they was all colored folks, -and _they felt good tu_, and every time they landed they’d fire a -broadside from the fort, and shelter ’em with smoke; and every time a -company of the fort’s soldiers come aboard the ship, they’d cover ’em -with smoke; and put it all together, it was by all odds the handsomest -sight I ever see in my travels. - -“Well, two days arter this, ’bout nine o’clock in the morning, the -cannon begun to blaze away from the old fort agin’, and we concluded we -was agoin’ to have some more _doin’s_, and I up on deck and looked and -looked, and bim’by I see a large frigate comin’ up leadin’ four -merchantmen with flying colors, and she blazed back agin’, and when she -got into the harbor, the seventy-fours in port opened their mouths -agin’, and so we had it pretty lively. - -“These merchantmen were loaded with provisions for the navy; oh! what a -heap of folks there was in that Rock!! Our captain says ‘boys, they’ve -bought our cargo, but I don’t s’pose ‘twould make a mouthful apiece for -’em.’ And what an expensive establishment that English army and navy is! - -“We stayed there at the Rock a good while, and these merchant vessels -went out under the protection of these navy ships, to victual the -English fleet there; and we heard a good deal ’bout Napoleon and Lord -Wellington. They was all the talk, and Wellington was all the toast; and -their armies was a shakin’ the whole ‘arth, and ships and armies agoin’ -and comin’ all the time; and there Lord Nelson, he was at the head of -the English navy, and he was a great toast; and every day the papers -would come and fetch stories of battles on land and at sea, till I was -as sick on ’em as I could be. It seemed to be nothin’ but a story of -blood all the time; and Europe and all the ocean was only jist a great -buryin’ and murderin’ ground; and, for my part, I never thought much of -these ’ere great wholesale murderers, as I calls Bonaparte, Wellington, -and Lord Nelson, and sich like sort of fellers. Why, Domine, I should -think, from all accounts I heard at the time, and arter it, that they -must have killed all of five millions of folks, in all that fightin’ -agin Napoleon. Oh! it’s a cruel piece of business to butcher folks so; -and yit, nevertheless, notwithstanding, them same men _was_ toasted, and -_be_-toasted _now_ all over the world, and it makes me sick of human -natur’; and if I am a black man, I hate to see respectable people act -so. - -“Finally, arter a long stay, we hauled up anchor for Port Antonio. One -day a man aloft cries out ‘ship ahoy.’ The captain looks through his big -glass and says, ‘bear down on her helmsman;’ and when we got nigh -’nough, the captain hails her; ‘what ship?’ - -“‘Torpedo.’ - -“‘What captain?’ - -“‘Trumbull.’ - -“‘Where from?’ - -“‘African coast.’ - -“‘Where bound?’ - -“‘America.’ - -“‘Can I come on board you?’ - -“‘Yes.’ - -“So he bears down and lays too, and I, ‘mong the rest, went aboard. The -captain treats us very genteel; and when they’d finished drinkin’ -Captain Trumbull orders the hatch open, and I looked down, and to my sad -surprise I see ’twas crowded with slaves. The first thing I see was a -colored female, as naked as she was born into the world, and she looked -up at me with a pitiful look; and an iron band went round her leg, and -then she was locked to an iron bolt that went from one end of the ship -to the other; and _there was five hundred slaves down in that hole_; -men, women, and children, all chained down there, and among ’em all not -one had a rag of clothes on,—and not a bit of daylight entered, only -that hatch-way, and then only when they opened it to throw out the dead -ones, or else feed ’em; and when I put my head over the hole, a steam -come out strong ’nough to knock down a horse, for there they was in -their own filth, and oh! how they did smell. There was several women -that had jist had children, and a good many sick, and there they was, -and oh! what a sight,—some on ’em was cryin’ and talkin’ among -themselves, but I couldn’t understand a word they said; and there was a -parcel of leetle fellers, that was from two to ten years old, a runnin’ -round ‘mong ’em, and some on ’em was _dead_, and you could hear the -_dyin’ groans of others_. Oh! I never did think a body of folks could -suffer so and _live_. Why, how do you think they sat? They all sat down -with their legs straddled out right up close agin’ one another, and they -couldn’t stir only one arm and hand, _for all else was chained_. - -“I felt worse, I ‘spose, and it was entirely more heart-rendin’ to me, -because they was my own species; they warn’t only human bein’s but -_Africans_. ☜ Oh! if I didn’t hate slavery arter this worse than ever; -why! it seemed to me a thousand times worse than it ever did afore, when -I was a slave myself. - -“Well, the captain said he started with eight hundred, and three hundred -had died on the v’yge! ☜ and he’d only been out ten days, and that’s -mor’n one an hour; and that he had to keep one hand in there nigh upon -half the time, to knock off the chains from the dead ones, and pitch ’em -upon deck; and, says he, I have left a wake of blood fifteen hundred -miles; for, no sooner than I fling one out than a shark flies at him and -colors all the water with blood in less than one minute; why, says he, -‘a shoal of sharks follows our slave ships clear from Africa to -America!!’ _Oh! my soul, if there is one kind of wickedness greater, and -worser, and viler, and more devilish and cusseder than any other, it is -sich business._ ☜ - -“The slave captain asked our captain if he thought he could git into -America? He told him he didn’t think he could. ‘How long do you -calculate to be in that business?’ says Captain Bainbridge. - -“‘I can’t tell, Sir.’ - -“‘Well, Sir,’ says our captain, as he left the ship, ‘I advise you to -clear up your ship when you git into port, and quit that cussed traffic, -and go aboard a merchantman, and be a gentleman.’[13] And he didn’t like -it nother’![14] Well, we left, and boarded our own ship; but that scene -of blood I couldn’t forgit! I could see them poor crutters, for a good -many days, in my thoughts and dreams; and sometimes I could see ’em jist -as fresh and sorrowful as ever. Hundreds and hundreds of poor slaves, -now at the South, are their descendants; and, like enough, you see some -on ’em Mr. L.——, when you was at the South; and I know how to pity the -descendants of them that’s fetched over in slave ships, for one of my -grandfathers was fetched out in one, as I told you in the beginnin’ on -my story. - -Footnote 13: - - All over the world slavery, in all its forms, is repugnant and - offensive to noble and generous feeling: and every where, in all ages - and nations, oppression and this unholy traffic meet with a just - rebuke. Man’s better feeling will revolt from cruelty and injustice - until they are extinguished. - -Footnote 14: - - Of course he didn’t “like it.” It never did please the devil to be - reproved of his evil deeds. It don’t please Southern soul-dealers and - soul-drivers to be rebuked. - -“Well, we made Port Antonio in three weeks, and stayed there thirteen -days, and got a cargo, and then the captain says ‘boys, we shall have a -rough passage home, if we go this fall, it’s so late, for we stayed a -good while over the brine, and now who will hold up hands for staying -till next spring?’ - -“So all on us up with both hands, and we hauled up anchor for -Amsterdam—that’s in the Dutch country—and we made port in four weeks; -and when we’d been there ’bout a fortnight, the captain got a letter -from his uncle, James Bainbridge, who was in Bristol, and wanted him to -come there and winter with him, for he was a sea captain, tu. So he -leaves his ship in our hands, and makes the first mate captain, and we -had to obey all his orders; and the captain starts and says, ‘farewell -boys, keep ship safe till you see me, and I’ll write to ye often, and -let you know how I cut my jib.’ And we see no more on him till airly -next spring. - -“Well, we had all the fun on shore and aboard we could ask for. White -and black, we was all hail fellers, well met. We used to have a heap of -visiters aboard, to hear ’bout America. We’d have an interpreter to tell -our stories, and almost make some of them smoking, thick-skulled -Dutchmen b’lieve that America flowed with milk and honey, and that pigs -run ‘round the streets here with knives and forks in their backs, cryin’ -out ‘eat me.’ I used to be a pretty slick darkey for fixin’ out a story, -tu, and a big one ’bout America; and then some white man would set by my -side and put the edge on, and ‘twould go without any greasin’; and the -captain used to say, always, that if any deviltry was agoin’ on, Pete -was always sure to have a finger in the pie. Well, we used to talk a -considerable ’bout the wars they was a havin’ in the old countries, at -that time, and they said they could take us up to a place, a few miles -from there, where there had been a great battle, sometime afore; and for -curiosity, we all went up to see it. Well, we goes, and finds thirty or -forty acres, and there wasn’t a green thing on it, and ’twas covered -with bones and skulls, and all kinds of balls and spikes, and bayonets, -and whole heaps of bones, and I guess you never see so melancholy a -place in all your life. Oh! it made me sick of war to see thousands and -thousands of human bein’s a bleachin’ on the sand. And it seemed that -the ground where that battle was fit, wouldn’t let any green thing grow -there, and I don’t b’lieve any green thing grows there till this day. -And there we was, a hearin’ every day ’bout Bonaparte, and his killin’ -his thousands, and his takin’ this city and that city, and his -conquerin’ this gineral and that gineral; but Lord Wellington give him a -tough heat on the land, and Lord Nelson on the sea; but the world see -_terrible sorry times_ for a few years, while that Napoleon was a -runnin’ his career. - -“Well, captain got back to Amsterdam the first of April, and on the -fourteenth we weighed anchor for New York. Well, come the sixth day I -guess, at evenin’ arter I’d done all my work, and was a settin’ on the -railin’ rother carelessly, the boom jibed and struck me on the top of my -head, and the first I knew I was pitched head first into the brine. I -fell into the wake and swum as fast as I could, and when I riz on the -wave I could see the ship and her lights, and then when I went down in -the troughs I lost sight of her, and I begun to feel kind’a streakish I -tell ye. But pretty soon a rope struck me on the head, and I grabbed and -hung on, and the hands aboard drew, and finally I got up pretty near, -and the first I knew, and ’bout the last I knew, a wave come and plunged -me head first right agin _the starn_, and that made all jar agin’ and I -see mor’n fifty thousand stars; but I hung on, and they drawed me up -aboard, and when I come fairly tu, the captain comes along and says:— - -“‘Nig? where you ben?’ - -“‘Ben a fishin’, Sir.’ - -“‘Yis, and if you’d come across a good shark, you’d catched a nice fish -wouldn’t you?’ - -“And when he spoke ’bout that, it scart me, for I begun to realize my -danger, and I begun to be afeard when ’twas tu late, and I trembled jist -like a leaf. - -“But I’ll hurry on. We made the New York light after a long v’yge, and -was kept on quarantine a good while, and on the mornin’ of the fourth of -July, when the bells was a ringin’, and the boats was a flyin’ through -the bay, and the guns from the Battery and Hoboken was a soundin’ along -the bosom of the Hudson, all independence; and we landed and jumped -ashore, and I think I never in all my life felt sich a kind of a gush of -joy rush through all my soul, as I did when I heard them bells ring, and -them guns roar; and this free nigger jumped ashore and celebrated -independence as loud as any body. - -“The captain paid us all off, and as I left him, I said I’d never go to -sea agin, but that didn’t make it so; for I hadn’t been ashore a month, -afore I was off agin with Captain George Thomson. Then I had five -hundred dollars—three hundred Spanish mill dollars, and two hundred on -the Manhattan Bank, and I had as good a wardrobe of clothes, both -citizen’s and sailor’s as any other feller. Captain Thomson finds out -I’d got this money, and says he, ‘you better not be a lugging your money -round from port, let it out and git the interest on it;’ and so he -showed me a rich man, Mr. Leacraft, that wanted it, and he gin me two -notes of two hundred and fifty dollars, for one and two years, and I -counted out my money; and we sailed for the West Indies. Well, we got -there and took in a heavy cargo of groceries, and ’bout for home. But -’twas late in the season, and we had cold blusterin’ weather, and -finally it grew so cold the rain froze on the riggin’; and the captain -says, ‘we can’t make New York,’ and the mate says, ‘we can; and so we -sailed on till we made the New York light, and we was all covered with -ice; and the captain says, ‘boys we shall git stove to pieces, for we -can’t manage our riggin’, and we must put back.’ So we did, into a -warmer climate, and in two or three days the riggin’ grew limber, and -the ice all dropped off, and it grew warmer and warmer, till at last we -was in a region like our Ingen summer. - -“Well, we’d been out a week, and Captain Woods, north from Bristol -hailed us, and asked how the entrance was to New York. Our captain told -him he couldn’t get in, but he swore he would, and on he sailed, and -he’d been gone ten days, and he come back a cussin’ and swearin’, and -had three of his men froze to death. We stay’d out four weeks longer, -and was nearly out of provisions, and obliged to make port; and it -moderated a leetle, and finally, arter some trouble, we reached home, -and a gladder set of fellers you never did see. - -“Well, we got paid off, and I jumped ashore, and says I, ‘I’ll stay here -now; and here’s what’s off to Lady Rylander’s, and the rest of the -season I’ll play the gentleman, for I’m sick of the brine, and I’ve got -money enough to make a dash in the world.’ I’d no sooner got ashore, -than a friend of mine comes up, and says, ‘Pete, you’ve lost all your -money.’ ‘That can’t be possible,’ says I. ‘Yis, Pete, Leacraft is twenty -thousand dollars worse than nothin’. Well, I was thunderstruck, and goes -up to see him. Leacraft says, ‘to be sure I am Peter, all broke down; -but if God spares my life, you shall have every dollar that’s your due.’ - -“But up to this hour I havn’t got a cent on it. Captain Thomson tried -and tried to git it for me, but all to no purpose; and I grieved and -passed sorrowful days and nights I tell ye; for I’d worked in heat and -cold, and in all climates and countries for it, and thought now I should -be able to begin life right, and ’twas all struck from me at a blow, and -’twas almost like takin’ life I tell ye. - -“And now I ‘spose I took a wrong step.—One day I was in a grog shop with -some of my companions, and I took a wicked oath, and flung down my money -on the counter to pay for our wine, and says I, ‘hereafter, no man shall -run away with the price of my labor, and if I have ten dollars, I’ll -spend, here she goes,’ and down went my rhino, and in ten days I had -spent all the pay of my last v’yge; and then I goes to Madam Rylander -and hires out for sixteen dollars a month as her body sarvant. Not a -finer lady ever set foot in Broadway; and she was as pleasant as the -noonday sun, and if her sarvants did wrong, she’d call ’em up and -discharge ’em, all pleasant, but firm; and she’d encourage me to be -economical and good, and I liked her, but I hadn’t got my fill of the -brine yit, and so I thought I’d out on the waves agin. You see I’d been -a slave so long that I was jist like a bird let out of her cage, and I -couldn’t be satisfied without I was a flyin’ all the time, and besides -there was great talk about a war with John Bull, and I liked it all the -better for that; and so I told Lady Rylander I must be off, and she -offered me higher wages, but all that wouldn’t do; I was bound for the -brine and must go. - -“I hired out to Captain Williams agin, as steward, for thirty-one -dollars a month; and we weighed anchor for St. Domingo; and we took a -load of goods from there and started for the Rock of Gibralter once -more. On our passage, we was overhauled by an equinoctial storm, and we -had a distressed bad time, and it did seem that we must go to the bottom -for days. We fell in with a fleet of thirty-seven sail from the West -Indies, under the convoy of two English frigates, for London. You see -these ships was merchantmen, and the English Admiral had sent out two -frigates to protect ’em; for England and France was at war, and they’d -seize each other’s commerce, and their governments had to protect ’em. -When we got in hailin’ distance of the frigates, captain cries out, ‘how -long do you think the storm will last?’ ‘Can’t say—all looks bad now; -two of our vessels have gone to pieces, and every soul lost.’ And while -we was talkin’ the seas broke over us like rollin’ mountains; we -couldn’t lay into the wind at all, and we had to let her fly, and we -went like a streak of greased lightnin’, and we soon lost sight on ’em; -and I tell you ’twas a melancholy sight to see _sich a fleet_ strugglin’ -_with sich a tempest_; but we had all we could attend to at home, -without borryin’ trouble from abroad. But we finally conquered the -storm, and dropped anchor under the old fort agin. We lay in the basin -two days, and then got liberty from the governor to go up the straits, -and we calculated to run up to Egypt, and we cleared the straits and -went into the Mediterranean; and then we was on what our college-larnt -fellers calls classic ground. - -“One day the captain calls me on deck and says, ‘Nig, do you see that -city up the coast?’ - -“‘Yis? Sir.’ - -“‘Well, that’s the spot you sing so much about; now let’s have it; -strike up, Nig.’ - -“So up I struck:— - - “‘To Carthagena we was bound, - With a sweet and lively gale,’ &c. - -“And I was glad enough to see my old port I’d celebrated so long in my -songs. Well, we sailed along and had the finest time ever one set of -fellers had—the air was as soft as you please, and the islands was as -thick as huckle-berries, and of all kinds and sizes. We sailed on by one -island, and then by another, and bim’by Mount Etna hove in sight, while -we was a hangin’ off the coast of Sicily, and ’twas rocky, and we -couldn’t hug the shore very close; but we had a fine sight of the -volcano; and there was a steady stream of fire and smoke come out of the -top of the mountain, and in the night it was a big sight. It flung a -kind of a flickerin’ light over the sea, and we stayed in sight of it -some time; and disposed of our load pretty much, and got back to the -fort in just eighteen days. We cleared the old Rock the next arternoon; -and I said ‘good night,’ to the old fort, and I hain’t seen her from -that day to this. - -“We sailed round Cape St. Vincent, off the coast of Portugal, and then -crossed the Bay of Biscay, O! and passed Land’s Eend—up St. George’s -Channel, and through the Irish Sea, and, on the eighteenth day, dropped -anchor in the harbor of Liverpool. - -“The captain calculated to stay in Liverpool till spring, for ’twas now -November, and trade a good deal, and bring home a heavy cargo of English -goods; but for sartin reasons, I’ll tell soon, we didn’t do it. While we -lay in Liverpool, there was some great _doin’s_, I tell ye. The English -troops, to the amount of some thousands, marched out under Lord -Wellington, for foreign sarvice on the continent, and soon arter this -Wellington went to fightin’ in Spain. Well, they marched out under -superior officers, and in the middle of the troops was Wellington’s -carriage, drawn by six milk-white horses, splendidly caparisoned, and he -was in it, and three or four other big lords; and, on each side of the -carriage was six officers, on jet black horses, with drawn swords, and -they made some noise tu; and I shall remember, to my dyin’ day, how -Wellington looked. - -“But we hadn’t been there long afore the captain comes down one night -from the city, aboard ship, and calls out to all the crew, and, says he, -‘boys there’s agoin’ to be war betwixt Great Britain and America, and -all that wants to clear port to-night, and spread our sails for New -York, say home!’ and we did say home, _in arnest_, and we made all -preparation, and ’bout midnight we weighed anchor, and towed ourselves -out as still as we could, and I never worked so hard while I was _free_ -as I did that night, and by daylight we spread all our sails for home, -and in four hours we was out of sight of Liverpool. Arter breakfast we -all give three cheers, and all hands says, ‘now we are bound for home, -sweet home!’ - -“Well, we had been out ’bout four days, and we fell in with Commodore -Somebody’s ship, that pioneered a fleet of merchantmen for London; they -hailed us, and we answered the signal and passed on, and they let us go -by peaceable, without a word of war or peace, on either side; and glad -’nough we was to pass ’em so, and we spread all our sails for America, -and felt thankful for every breeze that helped us forward. - -“Well, we had a quick passage, and made the New York light, and I never -was so glad to see that light-house in my life, for we expected to git -overhauled by an English man-of-war or a privateer every day. Well, we -got in the last of March, and this was 1812; and well we did, for the -first of April an embargo was laid on all the vessels in the ports of -the United States, and the nineteenth of June war was declared agin -Great Britain, and then the Atlantic was all a blaze of fire. - -“Captain Williams quit his ship, and took a privateer, and he tried to -git me ‘long with him, and I thought I would, for a while, but, finally, -I concluded I wouldn’t, _for I was too much afeared of them ’ere blue -plums that flew so thick across the brine for two or three years_. ☜ - -“Well, captain went out and was gone thirty days, and come back, and his -success was so good that his common hands shared five hundred dollars -apiece, and if I’d a gone, I should have had my five hundred dollars -back agin; but I’d no idee of going to be shot at for money, like these -’ere fools and gumps that goes down to the Florida swamps, to be shot at -all day by Ingens, for eighteen pence a day. Captain met me one day in -the street, and says he, ‘nig, if you’d only gone with me, you’d a been -as big a cuffee now as any on ’em.’ I says ‘captain, I don’t care ’bout -havin’ my head shot off of my shoulders; I’m big cuffee ’nough now!’ - -“Well, I didn’t go to sea durin’ the war, and afore we got through with -that, I got off of the notion of goin’ at all, and I concluded I’d spend -the rest of my days on ‘terra firma,’ as I’d been tossed round on the -brine long ’nough, and satisfied myself with seein’ and travel, and so I -stayed, and I han’t been out of sight of land ever sence. - -“But, one dreadful thing happened to me by goin’ to sea,—_I got -dreadfully depraved_; and I b’lieve there warn’t a man on the globe that -would swear worse than I would, and a wickeder feller didn’t breathe -than Pete Wheeler. No language was too vile or wicked for me to take -into my mouth; and it did seem to me, when I thought about it, that I -blasphemed my Maker almost every minute through the day; and I used to -frequent the theatre, and all bad places, and drink till I was dead -drunk for days; and nobody can bring a charge agin me for hardly one sin -but murder and counterfeitin’ that I ain’t guilty on. When I thought -’bout it, I used to think it the greatest wonder on ‘arth that God -Almighty didn’t cut me off and strike me to hell, for I desarved the -deepest damnation in pardition; and if any man on ‘arth says I didn’t, -why, all I have to say to sich a man is, that he ain’t a judge. _Why, as -for prayer_, I never thought of sich a thing for years; and as for -Sabbath day, I didn’t hardly know when it come, only I used to be on a -frolic or spree on that day, worse than any other day in the week. As -for the bible, why, for years and years I never see one, or heard one -read; and I didn’t, at that time, know how to read myself a word; and -for six years I never had a word said to me ’bout my soul, or the danger -of losin’ my soul, and I become as much of a heathen as any man in the -Hottentot country: and the truth is, no man can make me out so bad as I -raly was, _for besides all I acted out_, there was a hell in my bosom -all the time, and these outrageous things was only a little bilin’ -over,—only a few leetle streams that run out of a black fountain-head. - -“Oh! Mr. L.——, I don’t know what I should do at the judgment day, if I -couldn’t have a Saviour. I know I shall have a blacker account than -a’most any body there, and how can it all be blotted out, except by -Christ’s blood? - -“Why, Sir, you can’t tell how wicked sailors generally be. There ain’t -more’n one out of a hundred that cares any thing ’bout religion, and -they are head and ears in debauchery and intemperance, and gamblin’, and -all kinds of sin, and oh! ‘twould make your heart ache to hear their -oaths. I’ve seen ’em tremble, and try to pray durin’ a dreadful storm, -and all looked like goin’ to the bottom—for I don’t care how heathenish -and devilish any body is, if they see death starin’ on ’em in the face, -and they ‘spect to die in a few minutes, he’ll cry to God for help—but -no sooner than the storm abated they’d cuss worse than ever. Now this -was jist my fashion, and if any body says that a man who abuses a good -God like that don’t desarve to be cut off and put into hell, why then he -han’t got any common sense. - -“But all this comes pretty much from the officers. I never knowed but -one sea captain but what would swear sometimes, and most all on ’em as -fast as a dog can trot; and jist so sure as our officers swears, the -hands will blaspheme ten times worse; and if the captain wouldn’t swear, -and forbid it on board, his orders would be obeyed like any other -orders, _but, as long as officers swears, so long will sailors_. ☜ - -“But sailors have some noble things about ’em as any body of men. They -will always stand by their comrades in the heart of danger or -misfortune, or attack; and if a company on ’em are on shore, you touch -one you touch the whole; and if a sailor was on the Desert of Arabia, -and hadn’t but a quart of water, he’d go snacks with a companion. They -are sure to have a soft spot in their hearts somewhere, that you can -touch if you can git at it, and when they feel, they feel with all their -souls. But, arter all, _it’s the ruination of men’s characters to go to -sea_, for they become heathens, and ginerally, ain’t fit for sober life -arter it, and _ten to one they ruin their souls_. - -“But my v’yges are finished, and I’ll sing you one sailor’s song, and -then my yarn is done.” - -_Author._ “Well, strike up, Peter.” - -Peter sings— - -“THE SAILOR’S RETURN. - - “Loose every sail to the breeze, - The course of my vessel improve; - I’ve done with the toil of the seas, - Ye sailors I’m bound to my love. - - Since Solena’s as true as she’s fair, - My grief I fling all to the wind; - ‘Tis a pleasing return for my care, - My mistress is constant and kind. - - My sails are all filled to my dear; - What tropic birds swifter can move; - Who, cruel, shall hold his career, - That returns to the nest of his love? - - Hoist ev’ry sail to the breeze, - Come, shipmates, and join in the song; - Let’s drink, while our ship cuts the seas, - To the gale that may drive her along. - - I’ve reached, spite of tempests, the port, - Now I’ll fly to the arms of my love; - And, rather than reef I will court, - And win my beautiful dove.” - -END OF THE SECOND BOOK. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK THE THIRD. - - ---------- - - - PETER WHEELER AT THE CROSS. - - INSCRIBED - - _To the Free People of Color in the Free States._ - - Dear Friends: - - I inscribe this Book to you, for several reasons. I love - you, and feel anxious to have you become intelligent and - virtuous. I know that there are only a few books adapted to your - taste and acquirements; and I have had my eye upon your good in - writing this history. I have thought you would understand it a - great deal better if it was told in Peter’s own language, and so - I wrote it just as he told it. I hope you will read it - _through_, and follow Peter to the Lamb of God who taketh away - the sin of the world. And if you are oppressed by the strong arm - of power, and kept down by an unholy and cruel prejudice, forget - it and forgive it all, and go to that blessed Redeemer who came - to save your souls, that he might clothe you, at last, with - clean white linen, which is the righteousness of the sain’ts. - - Your friend, - - THE AUTHOR. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER I. - -Lives at Madam Rylander’s—Quaker Macy—Susan a colored girl lives with - Mr. Macy—she is kidnapped and carried away, and sold into - slavery—Peter visits at the “Nixon’s, mazin’ respectable” colored - people in Philadelphia—falls in love with Solena—gits the consent of - old folks—fix wedding day—“ax parson”—Solena dies in his arms—his - grief—compared with Rhoderic Dhu—lives in New Haven—sails for New - York—drives hack—Susan Macy is redeemed from slavery—she tells Peter - her story of blood and horror, and abuse, and the way she made her - escape from her chains. - - -_Author._ “Well, Peter, what did you go about when you quit the seas?” - -_Peter._ “The year I quit the seas, I went to live with Madam Rylander, -and stayed with her a year, and she gin me twenty-five dollars a month, -and I made her as slick a darkey as ever made a boot shine, and she was -as fine a lady as ever scraped a slipper over Broadway. While I lived -there, I used to visit at Mr. John Macy’s, a rich quaker who lived in -Broadway, across from old St. Paul’s. There was a colored girl lived -with his family, by the name of Susan, and they called her Susan Macy; -she was handsome and well edicated tu, and brought up like one of his -own children; and they thought as much on her as one of their daughters, -and she was as lovely a dispositioned gal as ever I seed; and I enjoyed -her society _mazinly_. - -“Well, one mornin’ she got up and went to her mistress’ bedroom, and -asked her what she’d have for breakfast—’Veal cutlet’ says she; and the -old man says, ‘Thee’ll find money in the sideboard to pay for it;’ and -she did, and took her basket and goes to the market a singin’ along as -usual—she was a great hand to sing; and gits her meat, and on her -return, she meets a couple of gentlemen, and one had a bundle, and says -he, ‘Girl if you’ll take this bundle down to the wharf, I’ll give you a -silver dollar;” and she thought it could do no harm, and so she goes -with it down to the ship they described, and as she reached out the -bundle, a man catched her and hauled her aboard and put her down in the -hole. - -“Her master and mistress got up and waited and waited, and she didn’t -come; and they went and sarched the street, and finds the basket, but -nothin’ could be heard of Susan in the whole city; and they finally gin -up that she was murdered. - -“Well, I’ll tell you the rest of the story, for I heard on her arter -this. - -“I stayed my year out with Madam Rylander, and then I quit; and she was -despod anxious to keep me, but I had other fish to fry, and took a -notion I’d drive round the country and play the gentleman. - -“I come across, in New York, a young feller of color, his parents very -respectable folks who lived in Philadelphia; and they took an anxious -notion for me to go home with ’em; and I started with ’em for -Philadelphia; and I had as good clothes as any feller, and a -considerable money, and I thought I might as well spend it so as any -way. Well come to Philadelphia, I found the Nixon’s very rich and -_mazin’ respectable_; and I got acquain’ted with the family, and they -had a darter by the name of _Solena_, and she was _dreadful handsome_, -and she struck my fancy right off the first sight I had on her. She was -handsome in fetur and pretty spoken and handsome behaved every way. Well -I made up my mind the first sight I had on her, I’d have her _if I could -git her_. I’d been in Philadelphia ’bout a week, and I axed her for her -company, and ’twas granted. I made it my business to wait on her, and -ride round with her, and visit her _alone_, as much as I could. The old -folks seemed to like it _mazinly_, and that pleased me, and I went the -_length of my rope, and felt my oats tu_. I treated her like a gentleman -as far as I knew how—I took her to New York three times, in company with -her brothers and their sweethearts; and we went in great splendor tu, -and I found that every day, I was nearin’ the prize, and finally I -popped the question, and arter some hesitation, she said, ‘Yis, Peter.’ -But I had another Cape to double, and that was to git the consent of the -old folks; and so one Sunday evenin’, as we was a courtin’ all alone in -the parlor, I concluded, a fain’t heart never won a fair lady; and so I -brushes up my hair, and starts into the old folks’ room, and I right out -with the question; and he says. - -“‘What do you mean, Mr. Wheeler?’ - -“‘I mean jist as I say, Sir! May I marry Solena.’ - -“‘Do you think you can spend your life happy with her?’ - -“‘Yis, Sir.’ - -“‘Did you ever see any body in all your travels, you liked better?’ - -“‘No, Sir! She’s the apple of my eye, and the joy of my heart.’ - -“‘I have no objection Mr. Wheeler. Now Ma, how do you feel?’ - -“‘Oh! I think Solena had better say, Yis.’ - -“And then I tell ye, my heart fluttered about in my bosom with joy. - - “‘Oh, love ’tis a killin’ thing; - Did you ever feel the pang?’ - -“So the old gentleman takes out a bottle of old wine from the sideboard, -and I takes a glass with him, and goes back to Solena. When I comes in, -she looks up with a smile and says, ‘What luck?’ I says, ‘Good luck.’ I -shall win the prize if nothin’ happens! and now Solena you must go in -tu, and you had better go in while the broth is hot. So she goes in, -pretty soon she comes trippin’ along back, and sets down in my lap, and -I says, ‘what luck?’ and she says ‘_good_.’ So we sot the bridal day, -and fixed on the weddin’ dresses, and so we got all fixin’s ready and -even the Domine was spoke for. And one Sabba-day arter meetin,’ I goes -home and dines with the family, and arter dinner we walked out over -Schuylkill bridge, and at evenin’ we went to a gentleman’s where she had -been a good deal acquain’ted; and there was quite a company on us, and -we carried on pretty brisk. She was naturally a high-lived thing, and -full of glee; and she got as wild as a hawk, and she _wrestled_ and -scuffled as gals do, and got all tired out, and she come and sets down -in my lap and looks at me, and says, ‘Peter help me;’ and I put my hand -round her and asked her what was the matter, and she fetched a sigh, and -groan, and fell back and died in my arms!!! A physician come in, and -says he, ‘she’s dead and without help, for she has burst a blood-vessel -in her breast.’ And there she lay cold and lifeless, and I thought I -should go crazy. - -“She was carried home and laid out, and the second day she was buried, -and I didn’t sleep a wink till she was laid in the grave; and oh! when -we come to lower her coffin down in the grave, and the cold clods of the -valley begun to fall on her breast, I felt that my heart was in the -coffin, and I wished I could die and lay down by her side. - -“For weeks and months arter her death, I felt that I should go ravin’ -distracted. I couldn’t realize that she was dead; oh! Sir, the world -looked jist like a great dreadful prison to me. I stayed at her -father’s, and for weeks I used to go once or twice a day to her tomb, -and weep, and stay, and linger round, and the spot seemed sacred where -she rested. - -“Well, I stayed in Philadelphia some months arter this, and I tell ye I -felt as though _my all_ was gone. I stood alone in the world, as -desolate as could be, and I determined I never would agin try to git me -a wife. It seemed to me I was jist like some old wreck, I’d seen on the -shore. - -A. “Peter, you make me think of Walter Scott’s description of Rhoderic -Dhu, in his ‘Lady of the Lake.’ - - “‘As some tall ship, whose lofty prore, - Shall never stem the billows more, - Deserted by her gallant band, - Amid the breakers lies astrand; - So on his couch lay Rhoderic Dhu, - And oft his feverish limbs he threw, - In toss abrupt; as when her sides - Lie rocking in the advancing tides - That shake her frame with ceaseless beat - But cannot heave her from her seat. - Oh! how unlike her course on sea, - Or his free step, on hill and lea.’ - -P. “Yis, Sir! I was jist like that same Rhoderic; what’de call him? Oh! -I was _worse_, the world was a prison to me, and I wanted to lay my -bones down at rest by the dust of Solena. I finally went back to New -York, and stayed there for a while, and then up to New Haven, and stayed -there two months, in Mr. Johnson’s family; and we used to board college -students; and we had oceans of oysters and clams; and New Haven is by -all odds the handsomest place I ever see in this country or in Europe; -and finally I sailed back to New York, arter try in’ to bury my feelin’s -in one way and another. But in all my wanderin’s, _I couldn’t forgit -Solena_. She seemed to cling to me like life, and I’d spend hours and -hours in thinkin’ about her, and I never used to think about her without -tears. - -“Well, I thought I would try to bury my feelin’s and forgit Solena, and -so I hires out a year to Mr. Bronson, to drive hack, and arter I’d been -with him a few months, I called up to Mr. Macy’s, my Quaker friend, and -I felt kind’a bad to go there tu and not find Susan, for I had the -biggest curiosity in the world to find out where she’d departed tu; but -I thought I’d go and talk with the old folks, and see if they’d heard -any thing about Susan. - -“Well, I slicks up and goes, and pulls the bell, and who should open the -door but _Susan herself_. ☜ - -“I says, ‘my soul, Susan, how on ‘arth are you here? I thought you was -dead.’ And she says as she burst into tears, ‘I have been _all but_ -dead. Come in and set down, and I’ll tell you all about it.’ - -“I says, ‘my heavens! Susan where have you been and how have ye fared?’ - -“She says, ‘I’ve been in _slavery_, ☜ and fared hard enough;’ and then -she had to go to the door, for the bell rung; and agin pretty soon she -comes back and begins her story, and as ’tain’t very long, and pretty -good, I’ll tell it, and if you’re a mind to put it in the book you may, -for I guess many a feller will be glad to read it. - -“‘Well,’ begins Susan, ‘I went down to the vessel, to carry a bundle, -and _three ruffins seized hold on me_, and I hollered and screamed with -all my might, and one on ’em clapped his hand on my face, and another -held me down, and took out a knife and swore if I didn’t stop my noise -_he’d stick it through my heart_; and they dragged me down into the -hold, where there was seven others that had been stole in the same way; -and these two fellers chained me up, and I cried and sobbed till I was -so fain’t I couldn’t set up. Along in the course of the forenoon they -fetched me some coarse food, but I had no appetite, and I wished myself -dead a good many times, for I couldn’t git news to master. I continued -in that state for two or three days, and found no relief but by -submitting to my fate, and I was doleful enough off, for I couldn’t see -sun, moon, or stars, for I should think two weeks; and then a couple of -these ruffins come and took me out into the forecastle, and my -companions, and they told me all about how they’d been stole; and we was -as miserable a company as ever got together. Come on deck, I see five -_gentlemen_, ☜ and one on ’em axed me if I could cook and wait on -gentlemen and ladies, and I says ‘yis, Sir,’ with my eyes full of tears, -and my heart broke with sorrow; and he axed me how old I was? I says, -‘seventeen,’ and he turns round to the master of the vessel and says, -‘I’ll take this girl.’ And he paid four hundred and fifty dollars for -me, and he took me to his house; and I found out his name was Woodford, -and he told me I was in Charleston; but I couldn’t forgit the happy -streets of New York. Now I gin lip all expectation of ever seem’ my own -land agin’, and I submitted to my fate as well as I could, but _’twas a -dreadful heart-breakin’ scene. Master was dreadful savage, and his wife -was a despod cross ugly woman._ When he goes into the house he says to -his wife, ‘now I’ve got you a good gal, put that wench on the -plantation.’ And he pointed to a gal that had been a chambermaid; and -then turnin’ to me says, ‘and you look out or you’ll git there, and if -you do _you’ll know it_.’ - -“I’d been there four or five weeks, and I heard master makin’ a despod -cussin’ and swearin’ in the evenin’, and I heard him over-say, ‘I’ll -settle with the black cuss to-morrow; I’ll have his hide tanned.’ - -“So the next day, arter breakfast, mistress orders me down into the back -yard, and I found two hundred slaves there; and there was an old man -there with a gray head, stripped and drawed over a whipping-block his -hands tied down, and the big tears a rollin’ down his face; and he -looked exactly like some old gray headed, sun-burnt revolutioner; and a -white man stood over him with a cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand, and he -was to give him one hundred lashes. ☜ And he says, ‘now look on all on -ye, and if you git into a scrape you’ll have this cat-o’-nine-tails -wrapped round you;’ and then he begun to whip, and he hadn’t struck -mor’n two or three blows, afore I see the blood run, and he was stark -naked, and his back and body was all over covered with scars, and he -says in kind’a broken language, ‘Oh! massa don’t kill me.’ ‘Tan his -hide,’ says master, and he kept on whippin’, and the old man groaned -like as if he was a dyin’, and he got the hundred lashes, ☜ and then was -untied and told to go about his work; and I looked at the block, and it -was kivered with blood, and that same block didn’t git clear from blood -as long as I stayed there. ☜ - -“‘Well, this spectacle affected me so, I could scarcely git about the -house, for I expected next would be my turn; and I was so afraid I -shouldn’t do right I didn’t half do my work. - -“‘It wore upon me so I grew poor through fear and grief. I would look -out and see the two hundred slaves come into the back yard to be fed -with rice, and they had the value of about a quart of rice a day, I -guess. - -“‘Every day, more or less would be whipped till the blood run to the -ground; and every day fresh blood could be seen on the block,—and what -for I never found out, for I darn’t ax any body, and I had no liberty of -saying any thing to the field hands. - -‘“I used often to look out of the window to see people pass and repass, -and see if I couldn’t see somebody that I knew; and I finally got sick, -and was kept down some time, and I jist dragged about and darn’t say one -word, for I should have been put on the _plantation for bein’ sick_! and -I meant to do the best I could till I dropped down dead; but the almost -whole cause on it was grief, and the rest was cruel hardship. Well, -things got so, I thought I must die soon, and in the height of my -sorrow, I looked out and see Samuel Macy—Master Macy’s second son, -walkin’ along the street, and I could hardly believe my eyes; and I was -stand in’ in the door, and I catches the broom, and goes down the steps -a sweepin’, and calls him by name as he comes along, and I tells him a -short story, and he says ‘I’ll git thee free, only be patient a few -weeks.’ I neither sees nor hears a word on him for over four weeks, but -I was borne up by hope, and that made my troubles lighter. Well, in -about four weeks, one day, jist arter dinner, there comes a gentleman -and raps at the front door, and I goes and opens the door, and there -stood old Master Macy, and I flies and hugs him, and he says ‘how does -thee do, Susan?’ I couldn’t speak, and as soon as I could I tells my -story; and Master Macy then speaks to mistress, who heard the talk and -had come out of the parlor, and says, ‘this girl is a member of my -family, and I shall take her,’ and then master come in and abused Master -Macy dreadfully; but he says, ‘come along with me, Susan;’ and, without -a bonnet or anything on to go out with I took him by the hand, and went -down to the ship; and, afore I had finished my story, an officer comes -and takes old Master Macy, and he leaves me in the care of his son -Samuel, aboard, and he was up street about three hours, tendin’ a -law-suit, and then he come back, and about nine o’clock that evenin’ we -hauled off from that cussed shore, and in two weeks we reached New York, -and here I am, in Master Macy’s old kitchen. - -“‘Well, he watches for this slave ship that stole me, and one day he -come in and said he had taken it, and had five men imprisoned; and the -next court had them all imprisoned for life, and there they be yit. And -now there’s no man, gentle or simple, that gits me to do an arrant out -of sight of the house. _Bought_ wit is the best, but I bought mine -dreadful dear. When I got back the whole family cried, and Mistress Macy -says, - - “‘Let us rejoice! for the dead is alive, and the lost is - found.”’ - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II. - -Kidnappin’ in New York—Peter spends three years in Hartford—couldn’t - help thinkin’ of Solena—Hartford Convention—stays a year in - Middletown—hires to a man in West Springfield—makes thirty-five - dollars fishin’ nights—great revival in Springfield—twenty - immersed—sexton of church in Old Springfield—religious - sentiments—returns to New York—_Solena again_—Susan Macy married—pulls - up for the Bay State again—lives eighteen months in Westfield—six - months in Sharon—Joshua Nichols leaves his wife—Peter goes after him - and finds him in Spencertown, New York—takes money back to Mrs. - Nichols—returns to Spencertown—lives at Esq. Pratt’s—Works next summer - for old Captain Beale—his character—falls in love—married—loses his - only child—wife helpless eight months—great revival of 1827—feels more - like gittin’ religion—“One sabba’day when the minister preached at - me”—a resolution to get religion—how to become a christian—evening - prayer-meeting—Peter’s convictions deep and distressing—going home he - kneels on a rock and prayed—his prayer—the joy of a redeemed soul—his - family rejoice with him. - - -_Peter._ “Well, I sot a hearin’ Susan’s story till midnight, and that -brought back old scenes agin, and there I sot and listened to her story -till I had enemost cried my eyes out of my head, and I have only gin you -the outline. And that kidnappin’ used to be carried on that way in New -York year after year, and it’s carried on yit. ☜ [15] Why, they used to -steal away any and every colored person they could steal, and this is -all carried on by northern folks tu, and it’s fifty times worse than -Louisiana slavery. - -Footnote 15: - - It became so common in New York that there was no safety for a colored - person there, and philanthropy and religion demanded some protection - for them against such a shocking system.—At last there was a vigilance - committee organized for the purpose of ascertaining the names and - residences of every colored person in the city; and this committee - used regularly to visit all on the roll, and almost every day some one - was missing. The result has been that several hundreds of innocent men - and women and children have been retaken from their bondage, from the - holds of respectable merchantmen in New York, to the parlours of - southern gentry in New-Orleans. The facts which have been brought out - by this committee are awful beyond description.—It is one of the - noblest, and most patriotic and efficient organization on the globe. - But their design expands itself beyond the protection and recovery of - kidnapped friends;—it also lifts a star of guidance and promise upon - the path of the fugitive slave; it helps him on his way to freedom, - and not one week passes by without witnessing the glorious results of - this humane and benevolent institution, in the protection of the free - or the redemption of the enslaved. The Humane Society, whose object is - to recover to life those who have been drowned, enlists the patronage - and encomiums of the great and good, and yet this Vigilance Committee - are insulted and abused by many of the public presses in New York, and - most of the city authorities.—Why? Slavery has infused its deadly - poison into the heart of the North. - -“Well, I stayed in New York till my time was out, and then went to -Hartford and worked three years, and enjoyed myself pretty well, _only I -couldn’t help thinkin’ ’bout Solena_. She was mixed up with all my -dreams and thoughts, and I used to spend hours and hours in thinkin’ -about what I’d lost. But arter all I suffered, I’m kind’a inclined to -think ’twas all kind in God to take her away, for arter this, I never -was so wicked agin nigh. I hadn’t time or disposition to hunt up my old -comrades, and if any time I begun to plunge into sin, then the thought -of Solena’s memory would come up afore me and check me in a minute, but -I was yit a good ways from rale religion. - -“While I was there, in December, 1814, the famous Hartford Convention -sot with closed doors, and nobody could find out what they was about, -and every body was a talkin’ about it, and they han’t got over talkin’ -about it, and I don’t b’lieve they ever will. The same winter the war -closed and peace was declared. I could tell a good many stories about -the war, but I guess ‘twould make the book rather too long, and every -body enemost knows all about the last war. - -“Well, I went down to Middletown and stayed a year there, and then I -went to hire out to a man in West Springfield, and he was a farmer, and -he hadn’t a chick nor child in the world, and he had a share in a -fishin’ place on the Connecticut, and he was as clever as the day is -long. He let me fish nights and have all I got, and sometimes I’ve made -a whole lot of money at one haul, and in that season I made thirty-five -dollars jist by fishin’ nights, besides good wages—and I didn’t make a -dollar fishin’ for Gideon Morehouse nights for years! - -“While I was there a Baptist minister come on from Boston and preached -some time, and they had a great revival, and I see twenty immersed down -in the Connecticut, and ’twas one of the most solemn scenes that ever I -witnessed. - -“They went down two by two to the river, and he made a prayer and then -sung this hymn, and I shan’t ever forget it, for a good many on ’em was -young. - - “‘Now in the heat of youthful blood, - Remember your Creator God; - Behold the months come hastening on - When you shall say ‘my joys are gone.’” - -“And then he went in and baptized ’em; and I know I felt as though I -wished I was a christian, for it seemed to me there was somethin’ very -delightful in it, and then they sung and prayed agin, and then went -home. - -“Arter this I lived in Old Springfield and was sexton of the church -there; and while I rung that bell I heard good preachin’ every Sunday, -and I larnt more ’bout religion than I’d ever knowed in all my life. I -begun to feel a good deal more serious and the need of gettin’ religion. - -“Arter my time was out there, I went down to New York, and there I met -Solena’s brother, and that brought every thing fresh to mind agin, and -for weeks agin I spent sorrowful hours. I thought I had about got over -it and the wound was healed; but then ‘twould git tore open agin and -bleed afresh, and sorrowful as ever. It did seem to me that nothin’ -would banish the image of that gal from my heart. - -“I used to call and see Susan Macy occasionally, and she was now Mrs. -Williams, and lived in good style tu, for a colored person. She was -married at Mr. Macy’s and they made a great weddin’, and all the genteel -darkies in New York was there; and I wan’t satisfied with waitin’ on -_one_, I must have _two_, and if we didn’t have a stir among our color -about them times I miss my guess; and Mr. Macy set her out with five -hundred dollars, and she had a fine husband and they lived together as -comfortable as you please. - -“Now I concluded I’d quit the city for good, I spent more money there -and had worse habits, and besides all this I wanted to git away as fur -as I could from the scene of my disappintment. - -“Well, I pulled up stakes agin and put out for the Bay State agin, and I -put into Westfield, and stayed there eighteen months, and made money and -saved it, and behaved myself, and ‘tended meetin’ every sabba’day, and -gained friends and was as respectable as any body. From Westfield I went -to Sharon and there I stayed six months, and ‘tended a saw mill, and -there was a colored man there by the name of Joshua Nichols, who had -married a fine gal, and he lived with her till she had one child and -then left her, and went out to Columbia county, New York; and I started -off for Albany, and she axed me if I wouldn’t find her husband on my -route, and so I left Sharon and got here to Spencertown, and found him, -and axed him why he would be so cruel as to leave his wife? He says ‘if -you’ll go and carry some money and a letter down to her I’ll pay you.’ -So he gin me the things and I put out for Sharon, and when Miss Nichols -broke open the letter she burst into tears, and says I, “why Miss -Nichols what’s the matter?” “Why Joshua says this is the last letter I -may ever expect from him.”—Well, I stayed one night, and come back and -concluded I’d go on for Albany, but when I got to Erastus Pratt’s he -wanted to hire me six months, and I hired, and his family was nice -folks, and he had a whole fleet of gals—and they was all as fine as -silk, but I used to tell Aunt Phebe, that Harriet was the rather the -nicest—on ’em all. Arter my six months was out, I worked a month in -shoein’ up his family, and I guess like enough some on ’em may be in the -garret yet. - -“Next summer I hired out to old Capt. Beale, and he was a noble man, and -did as much for supportin’ Benevolent Societies as any other man in -town, and in the mean time, I had got acquain’ted with her who is now my -wife, and this summer I was married to her by Esq. Jacob Lawrence, and -in the winter we went to keepin’ house. - -“When we had been married over a year, we had a leetle boy born, and the -leetle feller died and I felt bad enough, for he was my only child, and -it was despod hard work too, to give him up. I had at last found a woman -I loved, and all my wanderings and extravagancies was over, and I was -gettin’ in years, and I thought I could now be happy and enjoy all the -comforts of a home and fireside, but this was all blasted when I laid -that leetle feller in the grave, and my wife was sick and helpless eight -months. - -“In 1827 a great Revival spread over this whole region, and was powerful -here, and I used to go to all the meetin’s, and I begun to think more -about religion than I ever did in all my life; and these feelin’s hung -on to me ’bout a year, and agin I gin myself up to the world, and -plunged into sin, and grieved the Spirit of God, and grew dreadful vile, -as all the folks ‘round here will say, if you ax ’em.—And I myself, who -knows more ’bout myself than any other body, s’pose that _at heart_, I -was one of the wickedest men in the world. - -“Well, along in 1828 the religious feelin’ ‘round in this region, begun -to rise agin ‘round in this neighbourhood, and there was a good many -prayer meetin’s held, principally at Deacon Mayhew’s, and Esq. Pratt’s, -and I used to ‘tend ’em pretty steady, and I got back my old feelin’ -agin, and now felt more a good deal like gittin’ religion, than I ever -had; and rain or shine, I’d be at the meetin’s, and I detarmined I’d go -through it, if I went at all. This church here, which has since got so -tore and distracted, was all united, and seemed to be a diggin’ all the -same way, and Christ was among ’em. _There was one Sabbath day, I shan’t -ever forgit_, and when I went to meetin’, and the minister took his text -‘Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?’ the very minute the words come -out of his mouth, an arrow went to my heart, and I felt the whole -sarmint was aimed at me, and I felt despod guilty. I went home, and that -night I was distressed beyond all account, and I went to bed troubled to -death. But I formed the resolution, if there was any thing in religion -I’d have it, if I could git it, and I was detarmined as I could be that -I would hunt for the way of Salvation; and when I found it, I travelled -in it, and consider that there I _begun right_. But I was as ignorant of -rale religion as a horse-block, and I didn’t know how to go to work. -Sometimes, something would say, ‘Oh! Peter, give up the business, you -can’t git it through,’ but I held on to my resolution _despod tight_; -and I think, that is the way for a body to go about getting religion; on -the start, be detarmined to hunt for the path of duty, and as soon as -you find it, go right to travellin’ on it, and keep on; I knew I had -some duty to do to God, and I knew I must hunt for it if I found it, and -_do_ it if I ever got the favor of God. - -“Well, one night there was a prayer meetin’ in the church, and a shower -of prayer come down on the house like a tempest, and oh! how they did -beseech God that night—as the Bible says, ‘with strong cryin’ and -tears.’ - -“Deacon Mayhew got up and says, ‘There’s full liberty for any body to -git up and speak or pray.’ And I felt as though I must git up and say -somethin’ or pray, I was so distressed; but then I was a black man, and -was afeard I couldn’t pray nice enough, and so I set still, but I felt -like death. A number of young converts, prayed and made good prayers, -and there was a despod feelin’ there I tell ye. - -“Arter meetin’ a good many folks spoke to me, but I couldn’t answer ’em -for tears; and so I started for home, when I was goin’ cross the lots a -cryin’ I come to a large flat rock, and looked round to see if any body -was near by, and then I kneeled down and ’twas the _first time I ever -raly prayed_. - -“I begun, but I was so full I couldn’t only say these words and I -recollect ’em well. - -“‘Oh! Lord, here I be a poor wretch; do with me just as you please; for -I have sinned with an out stretched arm, and I feel unworthy of the -least mercy, but I beg for _blood_, the blood of him that died Calvary! -Oh! help me, keep up my detarmination to do my duty, and submit to let -you dispose on me jist as you please, for time and eternity; oh! Lord -hear this first prayer of a hell-desarving sinner.’” - -“Well, I got up, and felt what I never felt afore; I felt willing to do -God’s will, and that I was reconciled to God; afore this, I had felt as -though God was opposed to me, and I’d got to shift round afore he’d meet -me, and feel reconciled to me. I looked up to heaven, and I couldn’t -help sayin’, ‘My Father:’ never before nor sence, have I felt so much -joy and peace as I felt then, I was glad to be in God’s hands, and let -him reign, for I knew he would do right, and I felt sich a love for him, -as I can’t describe. - -“I got up from the rock, and the world did look beautiful round me; the -moon shone clear, and the stars, and then I thought about David, when he -tells about his feelin’s when he looked at the same moon and stars; you -see I was changed and that made the world look so new; and this -beautiful world was God’s world, and God was _my Father_, and that made -me happy, and that is ’bout all I can say ’bout it. - -“I went home, and found my wife and mother-in-law abed and ‘sleep, and I -lit up the candle and wakes ’em up, and says, - -“I’ve found the pearl of great price.” - -“I gits down the New Testament, for I had no Bible, and never owned one -till this time, and says, “I’ll read a chapter and then make a prayer, -(for you see my wife had larnt me to read arter a fashion,) and they say -‘That’s right Peter, I’m glad you feel as though you could pray,’ I -opened the Testament to the 14th chapter of John, ‘Let not your heart be -troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me,’ &c. Then I made a -prayer and set up my family altar, and I have prayed in my family every -day, and mean to keep it up, for I believe all christians ought to pray -mornin’ and evenin’ in their families. - -“Well, I went to bed and talked to my wife ’bout religion, till I fairly -talked her asleep, and then I lay awake and thought, and prayed, and -wept for joy, and it will be a good while afore I forgit that night. - - “For who can express - The sweet comfort and peace - Of a soul in its arliest Love.” - - - END. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Chains and Freedom, by Charles Edwards Lester - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAINS AND FREEDOM *** - -***** This file should be named 61074-0.txt or 61074-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/0/7/61074/ - -Produced by hekula03, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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