This person was Mr. Richard Furley, who, after that, hired me at the court house every year till my master came of age.  He gave me a pass to work for myself; so I obtained work by the piece where I could, and paid him out of my earnings what we had agreed on; I maintained myself on the rest, and saved what I could.  In this way I was not liable to be flogged and ill used.  He paid seventy, eighty, or ninety dollars a year for me, and I paid him twenty or thirty dollars a year more than that.

When my master came of age, he took all his colored people to himself.  Seeing that I was industrious and persevering, and had obtained plenty of work, he made me pay him almost twice as much as I had paid Mr. Furley.  At that time the English blockaded the Chesapeake, which made it necessary to send merchandise from Norfolk to Elizabeth City by the Grand Canal, so that it might get to sea by Pamlico Sound and Ocracock Inlet.  I took some canal boats on shares; Mr. Grice, who married my other young mistress, was the owner of them.  I gave him one half of all I received for freight; out of the other half I had to victual and man the boats, and all over that expense was my own profit.

Some time before this, my brother Benjamin returned from the West Indies, where he had been two years with his master’s vessel.  I was very glad to hear of it, and got leave to go see him.  While I was sitting with his wife and him, his wife’s master came and asked him to fetch a can of water; he did so, and carried it into the store.  While I was waiting for him, and wondering at his being so long away, I heard the heavy blows of a hammer:  after a little while I was alarmed, and went to see what was going on.  I looked into the store, and saw my brother lying on his back on the floor, and Mr. Williams, who had bought him, driving staples over his wrists and ankles; an iron bar was afterwards put across his breast, which was also held down by staples.  I asked what he had been doing, and was told that he had done nothing amiss, but that his master had failed, and he was sold towards paying the debts.  He lay in that state all that night; next day he was taken to jail, and I never saw him again.  This is the usual treatment under such circumstances.  I had to go by my mother’s next morning, but I feared to tell her what had happened to my brother.  I got a boy to go and tell her.  She was blind and very old, and was living in a little hut, in the woods, after the usual manner of old, worn-out slaves; she was unable to go to my brother before he was taken away, and grieved after him greatly.

It was some time after this that I married a slave belonging to Mr. Enoch Sawyer, who had been so hard a master to me.  I left her at home, (that is, at his house,) one Thursday morning, when we had been married about eight months.  She was well, and seemed likely to be so.  We were nicely getting together our little necessaries.  On the Friday, as I was at work, as usual, with the boats, I heard