he stepped back and raised his gun to his face.  They called to him to surrender; and stated that they had him in their power, and said he had better give up.  He said he would not:  and if they tried to take him, he would kill one of them; for, if he gave up, he knew they would kill him, and he was determined to sell his life as dear as he could.  They told him, if he should shoot one of them, the other two would certainly kill him:  he replied, he was determined not to give up, and kept his gun moving from one to the other; and while his rifle was turned toward one, another, standing in a different direction, shot him through the head, and he fell lifeless to the ground.

There was another slave shot while I was there; this man had run away, and had been living in the woods a long time, and it was not known where he was, till one day he was discovered by two men, who went on the large island near Belvidere to hunt turkeys; they shot him and carried his head home.

It is common to keep dogs on the plantations, to pursue and catch runaway slaves.  I was once bitten by one of them.  I went to the overseer’s house, the dog lay in the piazza, as soon as I put my foot upon the floor, he sprang and bit me just above the knee, but not severely; he tore my pantaloons badly.  The overseer apologized for his dog, saying he never knew him to bite a white man before.  He said he once had a dog, when he lived on another plantation, that was very useful to him in hunting runaway negroes.  He said that a slave on the plantation once ran away; as soon as he found the course he took, he put the dog on the track, and he soon came so close upon him that the man had to climb a tree, he followed with his gun, and brought the slave home.

The slaves have a great dread of being sold and carried south.  It is generally said, and I have no doubt of its truth, that they are much worse treated farther south.

The following are a few among the many facts related to me while I lived among the slaveholder.  The names of the planters and plantations, I shall not give, as they did not come under my own observation.  I however place the fullest confidence in their truth.

A planter not far from Mr. Swan’s employed an overseer to whom he paid $400 a year; he became dissatisfied with him, because he did not drive the slaves hard enough, and get more work out of them.  He therefore sent to South Carolina, or Georgia, and got a man to whom he paid I believe $800 a year.  He proved to be a cruel fellow, and drove the slaves almost to death.  There was a slave on this plantation, who had repeatedly run away, and had been severely flogged every time.  The last time he was caught, a hole was dug in the ground, and he buried up to the chin, his arms being secured down by his sides.  He was kept in this situation four or five days.