When I went back to Mr. Wood’s to get my trunk, I saw a lady, Mrs. Pell, who was on a visit to my mistress.  When Mr. and Mrs. Wood heard me come in, they set this lady to stop me, finding that they had gone too far with me.  Mrs. Pell came out to me, and said, “Are you really going to leave, Molly?  Don’t leave, but come into the country with me.”  I believe she said this because she thought Mrs. Wood would easily get me back again.  I replied to her, “Ma’am, this is the fourth time my master and mistress have driven me out, or threatened to drive me—­and I will give them no more occasion to bid me go.  I was not willing to leave them, for I am a stranger in this country, but now I must go—­I can stay no longer to be so used.”  Mrs. Pell then went up stairs to my mistress, and told that I would go, and that she could not stop me.  Mrs. Wood was very much hurt and frightened when she found I was determined to go out that day.  She said, “If she goes the people will rob her, and then turn her adrift.”  She did not say this to me, but she spoke it loud enough for me to hear; that it might induce me not to go, I suppose.  Mr. Wood also asked me where I was going to.  I told him where I had been, and that I should never have gone away had I not been driven out by my owners.  He had given me a written paper some time before, which said that I had come with them to England by my own desire; and that was true.  It said also that I left them of my own free will, because I was a free woman in England; and that I was idle and would not do my work—­which was not true.  I gave this paper afterwards to a gentleman who inquired into my case.[13]

[Footnote 13:  See page 24.]

I went into the kitchen and got my clothes out.  The nurse and the servant girl were there, and I said to the man who was going to take out my trunk, “Stop, before you take up this trunk, and hear what I have to say before these people.  I am going out of this house, as I was ordered; but I have done no wrong at all to my owners, neither here nor in the West Indies.  I always worked very hard to please them, both by night and day; but there was no giving satisfaction, for my mistress could never be satisfied with reasonable service.  I told my mistress I was sick, and yet she has ordered me out of doors.  This is the fourth time; and now I am going out.”

And so I came out, and went and carried my trunk to the Moravians.  I then returned back to Mash the shoe-black’s house, and begged his wife to take me in.  I had a little West Indian money in my trunk; and they got it changed for me.  This helped to support me for a little while.  The man’s wife was very kind to me.  I was very sick, and she boiled nourishing things up for me.  She also sent for a doctor to see me, and he sent me medicine, which did me good, though I was ill for a long time with the rheumatic pains.  I lived a good many months with these poor people, and they nursed me, and did all that lay in their power to serve me.  The man was well acquainted with my situation, as he used to go to and fro to Mr. Wood’s house to clean shoes and knives; and he and his wife were sorry for me.