it makes my blood run chill to think of, confined to the plantation, with not enough of food and that little of the coarsest kind, to satisfy the gnawings of hunger,—­compelled oftentimes, to hie away in the night-time, when worn down with work, and steal, (if it be stealing,) and privately devour such things as they can lay their hands upon,—­made to feel the rigors of bondage with no cessation,—­torn away sometimes from the few friends they love, friends doubly dear because they are few, and transported to a climate where in a few hard years they die,—­or at best conducted heavily and sadly to their resting place under the sod, upon their old master’s plantation,—­sometimes, perhaps, enlivening the air with merriment, but a forced merriment, that comes from a stagnant or a stupified heart.  Such as this is the fate of the plantation slaves generally, but such was not my lot.  My way was comparatively light, and what is better, it conducted to freedom.  And my wife and children were with me.  After my master died, my mistress sold a number of her slaves from their families and friends—­but not me.  She sold several children from their parents—­but my children were with me still.  She sold two husbands from their wives—­but I was still with mine.  She sold one wife from her husband—­but mine had not been sold from me.  The master of my wife, Mr. Smith, had separated members of families by sale—­but not of mine.  With me and my house, the tenderer tendrils of the heart still clung to where the vine had entwined; pleasant was its shade and delicious its fruit to our taste, though we knew, and what is more, we felt that we were slaves.  But all around I could see where the vine had been torn down, and its bleeding branches told of vanished joys, and of new wrought sorrows, such as, slave though I was, had never entered into my practical experience.

I had never been permitted to learn to read; but I used to attend church, and there I received instruction which I trust was of some benefit to me.  I trusted, too, that I had experienced the renewing influences of the gospel; and after obtaining from my mistress a written permit, (a thing always required in such a case,) I had been baptised and received into fellowship with the Baptist denomination.  So that in religious matters, I had been indulged in the exercise of my own conscience—­a favor not always granted to slaves.  Indeed I, with others, was often told by the minister how good God was in bringing us over to this country from dark and benighted Africa, and permitting us to listen to the sound of the gospel.  To me, God also granted temporal freedom, which man without God’s consent, had stolen away.