was Dick: moreover, I told him that I had seen
him in and out of the stable on Saturday night, so
master tied Dick up and gave him 39 lashes more, and
washed his back down with salt and water, and told
him that at night if he did not confess, he would
give him as much more; so at night, when master went
out to Dick again, he asked if he had made up his
mind to tell him the truth, Dick said, yes, master;—well,
said master, let me hear it. Well master, said
Dick, I did turn the horses out; but will never do
so again. So master, satisfied with this confession,
struck Dick no more, and ordered him to be untied;
but Dick had a sore back for many weeks. And
now to return to the negroes I had left at the dance,
when they discovered that their horses were gone there
was the greatest consternation amongst them, the forebodings
of the awful consequences if they dared to go home
induced many that night to seek salvation in the direction
and guidance of the north star. Several who started
off on that memorable night I have since shook hands
with in Canada. They told me there were sixteen
of them went off together, four of them were shot or
killed by the bloodhounds, and one was captured while
asleep in a barn; the rest of those who were at the
dance either went home and took their floggings, or
strayed into the woods until starved out, and then
surrendered. One of those I saw in Toronto, is
Dan Patterson; he has a house of his own, with a fine
horse and cart, and he has a beautiful Sambo woman
for his wife, and four fine healthy-looking children.
But, like myself, he had left a wife and six children
in slavery. When I was about seventeen, I was
deeply smitten in love with a yellow girl belonging
to Doctor Tillotson. This girl’s name was
Mary, of whose lovliness I dreamt every night.
I certainly thought she was the prettiest girl I had
ever seen in my life. Her colour was very fair,
approaching almost to white; her countenance was frank
and open, and very inviting; her voice was as sweet
as the dulcimer, her smiles to me were like the May
morning sunbeams in the spring, one glance of her
large dark eyes broke my heart in pieces, with a stroke
like that of an earthquake. O, I thought, this
girl would make me a paradise, and to enjoy her love
I thought would be heaven. In spite of either
patrols or dogs, who stood in my way, every night nearly
I was in Mary’s company. I learned from
her that she had already had a child to her master
in Mobile, and that her mistress had sold her down
here for revenge; and she told me also of the sufferings
that she had undergone from her mistress on account
of jealousy—her baby she said her mistress
sold out of her arms, only eleven months old, to a
lady in Marysville, Kentucky. Having never before
felt a passion like this, or of the gentle power,
so peculiar to women, that, hard as I worked all day,
I could not sleep at night for thinking of this almost
angel in human shape. We kept company about six
weeks, during which time I was at sometimes as wretched