“My uncle wishing to purchase what is called a good ‘house wench,’ a trader in human flesh soon produced a woman, recommending her as highly as ever a jockey did a horse.  She was purchased, but on trial was found wanting in the requisite qualifications.  She then fell a victim to the disappointed rage of my uncle; innocent or guilty, she suffered greatly from his fury.  He used to tie her to a peach tree in the yard, and whip her till there was no sound place to lay another stroke, and repeat it so often that her back was kept continually sore.  Whipping the females around the legs, was a favorite mode of punishment with him.  They must stand and hold up their clothes, while he plied his hickory.  He did not, like some of his neighbors, keep a pack of hounds for hunting runaway negroes, but be kept one dog for that purpose, and when he came up with a runaway, it would have been death to attempt to fly, and it was nearly so to stand.  Sometimes, when my uncle attempted to whip the slaves, the dog would rush upon them and relieve them of their rags, if not of their flesh.  One object of my uncle’s special hate was “Jerry,” a slave of a proud spirit.  He defied all the curses, rage and stripes of his tyrant.  Though he was often overpowered—­for my uncle would frequently wear out his stick upon his head—­yet be would never submit.  As he was not expert in picking cotton, he would sometimes run away in the fall, to escape abuse.  At one time, after an absence of some months, he was arrested and brought back.  As is customary, he was stripped, tied to a log, and the cow-skin applied to his naked body till his master was exhausted.  Then a large log chain was fastened around one ankle, passed up his back, over his shoulders, then across his breast, and fastened under his arm.  In this condition he was forced to perform his daily task.  Add to this he was chained each night, and compelled to chop wood every Sabbath, to make up lost time.  After being thus manacled for some months, he was released—­but his spirit was unsubdued.  Soon after, his master, in a paroxysm of rage, fell upon him, wore out his staff upon his head, loaded him again with chains, and after a month, sold him farther south.  Another slave, by the name of Mince, who was a man of great strength, purloined some bacon on a Christmas eve.  It was missed in the morning, and he being absent, was of course suspected.  On returning home, my uncle commanded him to come to him, but he refused.  The master strove in vain to lay hands on him; in vain he ordered his slaves to seize him—­they dared not.  At length the master hurled a stone at his head sufficient to have felled a bullock—­but he did not heed it.  At that instant my aunt sprang forward, and presenting the gun to my uncle, exclaimed, ‘Shoot him! shoot him !’ He made the attempt, but the gun missed fire, and Mince fled.  He was taken eight or ten months after while crossing the Ohio.  When brought back, the master, and an overseer on another plantation, took him to the mountain and punished him to their satisfaction in secret; after which he was loaded with chains and set to his task.