got to know I had them I never knew; but when I got home he gave me a note to Mr. Cobb, the overseer, and told me to tell Dick, (another slave on the plantation) to come to Baltimore to him on the following evening, and as soon as I took the note in my hand I was certain there was a flogging in it for me, though he said nothing to me.  I held the note that night and following day, afraid to give it to Mr. Cobb, so confident was I of what would be the result.  Towards evening I began to reason thus—­If I give Cobb the note I shall be whipped; if I withhold the note from him I shall be whipped, so a whipping appears plain in either case.  Now Dick having arranged to meet his sweetheart this night assumed sickness, so that he could have an excuse for not meeting master at Baltimore, and he wanted me to go instead of him.  I agreed to go, providing he would take the note I had to Mr. Cobb, as I had forgot to give it him, to which he consented, and off I went; and I heard that when he delivered the note to Mr. Cobb, he ordered him to go to the whipping-post, and when he asked what he had done he was knocked down, and afterwards put to the post and thirty-nine lashes were administered, and failed seeing his sweetheart as well.  When I arrived at Baltimore my master and young master took their seats and I drove away without any question until we had gone three miles, when he asked what I was doing there that night.  I very politely said Dick was not well, and I had come in his place.  He then asked me if Mr. Cobb got his note, I answered, yes, sir.  He then asked me how I felt, and I said first rate, sir.  “The d—–­l you do,” said he.  I said, yes sir.  He said “nigger, did Mr. Cobb flog you?” No sir.  I have done nothing wrong.  “You never do,” he answered; and said no more until he got home.  Being a man who could not bear to have any order of his disobeyed or unfulfilled, he immediately called for Mr. Cobb, and was told he was in bed; and when he appeared, the master asked if he got the note sent by the nigger.  Mr. Cobb said “Yes.”  “Then why,” said master, “did you not perform my orders in the note?” “I did, sir,” replied Cobb; when the master said, “I told you to give that nigger thirty-nine lashes,” Mr. Cobb says, “So I did, sir;” when master replied, “He says you never licked him at all.”  Upon which Cobb said, “He is a liar;” when my master called for me (who had been hearing the whole dialogue at the door), I turned on my toes and went a short distance, and I shouted with a loud voice that I was coming, (to prevent them knowing that I had been listening) and appeared before them and said “here I am master, do you want me?” He said “Yes.  Did you not tell me that Mr. Cobb had not flogged you,” and I said “yes I did; he has not flogged me to-day, sir.”  Mr. Cobb answered, “I did not flog him.  You did not tell me to flog him.  You told me to flog that other nigger.”  “What other nigger,” enquired Master.  Cobb said, “Dick.”  Master then said, “I did not.  I told you to flog this nigger here.”  Cobb then produced the letter, and read it as follows: