However, the next morning, the 30th of December, the wind being brisk and easterly, the Oeolus frigate, which was to escort the convoy, made a signal for sailing.  All the ships then got up their anchors; and, before any of my friends had an opportunity to come off to my relief, to my inexpressible anguish our ship had got under way.  What tumultuous emotions agitated my soul when the convoy got under sail, and I a prisoner on board, now without hope!  I kept my swimming eyes upon the land in a state of unutterable grief; not knowing what to do, and despairing how to help myself.  While my mind was in this situation the fleet sailed on, and in one day’s time I lost sight of the wished-for land.  In the first expressions of my grief I reproached my fate, and wished I had never been born.  I was ready to curse the tide that bore us, the gale that wafted my prison, and even the ship that conducted us; and I called on death to relieve me from the horrors I felt and dreaded, that I might be in that place

“Where slaves are free, and men oppress no more. 
Fool that I was, inur’d so long to pain,
To trust to hope, or dream of joy again.

* * * * *

Now dragg’d once more beyond the western main,
To groan beneath some dastard planter’s chain;
Where my poor countrymen in bondage wait
The long enfranchisement of ling’ring fate: 
Hard ling’ring fate! while, ere the dawn of day,
Rous’d by the lash they go their cheerless way;
And as their souls with shame and anguish burn,
Salute with groans unwelcome morn’s return,
And, chiding ev’ry hour the slow-pac’d sun,
Pursue their toils till all his race is run. 
No eye to mark their suff’rings with a tear;
No friend to comfort, and no hope to cheer: 
Then, like the dull unpity’d brutes, repair
To stalls as wretched, and as coarse a fare;
Thank heaven one day of mis’ry was o’er,
Then sink to sleep, and wish to wake no more[P].”

The turbulence of my emotions however naturally gave way to calmer thoughts, and I soon perceived what fate had decreed no mortal on earth could prevent.  The convoy sailed on without any accident, with a pleasant gale and smooth sea, for six weeks, till February, when one morning the Oeolus ran down a brig, one of the convoy, and she instantly went down and was ingulfed in the dark recesses of the ocean.  The convoy was immediately thrown into great confusion till it was daylight; and the Oeolus was illumined with lights to prevent any farther mischief.  On the 13th of February 1763, from the mast-head, we descried our destined island Montserrat; and soon after I beheld those

    “Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
    And rest can rarely dwell.  Hope never comes
    That comes to all, but torture without end
    Still urges.”

At the sight of this land of bondage, a fresh horror ran through all my frame, and chilled me to the heart.  My former slavery now rose in dreadful review to my mind, and displayed nothing but misery, stripes, and chains; and, in the first paroxysm of my grief, I called upon God’s thunder, and his avenging power, to direct the stroke of death to me, rather than permit me to become a slave, and be sold from lord to lord.