When we drew near to England, the rheumatism seized all my limbs worse than ever, and my body was dreadfully swelled.  When we landed at the Tower, I shewed my flesh to my mistress, but she took no great notice of it.  We were obliged to stop at the tavern till my master got a house; and a day or two after, my mistress sent me down into the wash-house to learn to wash in the English way.  In the West Indies we wash with cold water—­in England with hot.  I told my mistress I was afraid that putting my hands first into the hot water and then into the cold, would increase the pain in my limbs.  The doctor had told my mistress long before I came from the West Indies, that I was a sickly body and the washing did not agree with me.  But Mrs. Wood would not release me from the tub, so I was forced to do as I could.  I grew worse, and could not stand to wash.  I was then forced to sit down with the tub before me, and often through pain and weakness was reduced to kneel or to sit down on the floor, to finish my task.  When I complained to my mistress of this, she only got into a passion as usual, and said washing in hot water could not hurt any one;—­that I was lazy and insolent, and wanted to be free of my work; but that she would make me do it.  I thought her very hard on me, and my heart rose up within me.  However I kept still at that time, and went down again to wash the child’s things; but the English washerwomen who were at work there, when they saw that I was so ill, had pity upon me and washed them for me.

After that, when we came up to live in Leigh Street, Mrs. Wood sorted out five bags of clothes which we had used at sea, and also such as had been worn since we came on shore, for me and the cook to wash.  Elizabeth the cook told her, that she did not think that I was able to stand to the tub, and that she had better hire a woman.  I also said myself, that I had come over to nurse the child, and that I was sorry I had come from Antigua, since mistress would work me so hard, without compassion for my rheumatism.  Mr. and Mrs. Wood, when they heard this, rose up in a passion against me.  They opened the door and bade me get out.  But I was a stranger, and did not know one door in the street from another, and was unwilling to go away.  They made a dreadful uproar, and from that day they constantly kept cursing and abusing me.  I was obliged to wash, though I was very ill.  Mrs. Wood, indeed once hired a washerwoman, but she was not well treated, and would come no more.

My master quarrelled with me another time, about one of our great washings, his wife having stirred him up to do so.  He said he would compel me to do the whole of the washing given out to me, or if I again refused, he would take a short course with me:  he would either send me down to the brig in the river, to carry me back to Antigua, or he would turn me at once out of doors, and let me provide for myself.  I said I would willingly go back, if he would let