When I reached the house, I went in directly to Miss Betsey.  I found her in great distress; and she cried out as soon as she saw me, “Oh, Mary! my father is going to sell you all to raise money to marry that wicked woman.  You are my slaves, and he has no right to sell you; but it is all to please her.”  She then told me that my mother was living with her father’s sister at a house close by, and I went there to see her.  It was a sorrowful meeting; and we lamented with a great and sore crying our unfortunate situation.  “Here comes one of my poor picaninnies!” she said, the moment I came in, “one of the poor slave-brood who are to be sold to-morrow.”

Oh dear!  I cannot bear to think of that day,—­it is too much.—­It recalls the great grief that filled my heart, and the woeful thoughts that passed to and fro through my mind, whilst listening to the pitiful words of my poor mother, weeping for the loss of her children.  I wish I could find words to tell you all I then felt and suffered.  The great God above alone knows the thoughts of the poor slave’s heart, and the bitter pains which follow such separations as these.  All that we love taken away from us—­Oh, it is sad, sad! and sore to be borne!—­I got no sleep that night for thinking of the morrow; and dear Miss Betsey was scarcely less distressed.  She could not bear to part with her old playmates, and she cried sore and would not be pacified.

The black morning at length came; it came too soon for my poor mother and us.  Whilst she was putting on us the new osnaburgs in which we were to be sold, she said, in a sorrowful voice, (I shall never forget it!) “See, I am shrouding my poor children; what a task for a mother!”—­She then called Miss Betsey to take leave of us.  “I am going to carry my little chickens to market,” (these were her very words,) “take your last look of them; may be you will see them no more.”  “Oh, my poor slaves! my own slaves!” said dear Miss Betsey, “you belong to me; and it grieves my heart to part with you.”—­Miss Betsey kissed us all, and, when she left us, my mother called the rest of the slaves to bid us good bye.  One of them, a woman named Moll, came with her infant in her arms.  “Ay!” said my mother, seeing her turn away and look at her child with the tears in her eyes, “your turn will come next.”  The slaves could say nothing to comfort us; they could only weep and lament with us.  When I left my dear little brothers and the house in which I had been brought up, I thought my heart would burst.

Our mother, weeping as she went, called me away with the children Hannah and Dinah, and we took the road that led to Hamble Town, which we reached about four o’clock in the afternoon.  We followed my mother to the market-place, where she placed us in a row against a large house, with our backs to the wall and our arms folded across our breasts.  I, as the eldest, stood first, Hannah next to me, then Dinah; and our mother stood beside, crying over us.