I went directly home, and told the story of my wrongs to Master Hugh; and I am happy to say of him, irreligious as he was, his conduct was heavenly, compared with that of his brother Thomas under similar circumstances.  He listened attentively to my narration of the circumstances leading to the savage outrage, and gave many proofs of his strong indignation at it.  The heart of my once overkind mistress was again melted into pity.  My puffed-out eye and blood-covered face moved her to tears.  She took a chair by me, washed the blood from my face, and, with a mother’s tenderness, bound up my head, covering the wounded eye with a lean piece of fresh beef.  It was almost compensation for my suffering to witness, once more, a manifestation of kindness from this, my once affectionate old mistress.  Master Hugh was very much enraged.  He gave expression to his feelings by pouring out curses upon the heads of those who did the deed.  As soon as I got a little the better of my bruises, he took me with him to Esquire Watson’s, on Bond Street, to see what could be done about the matter.  Mr. Watson inquired who saw the assault committed.  Master Hugh told him it was done in Mr. Gardner’s ship-yard at midday, where there were a large company of men at work.  “As to that,” he said, “the deed was done, and there was no question as to who did it.”  His answer was, he could do nothing in the case, unless some white man would come forward and testify.  He could issue no warrant on my word.  If I had been killed in the presence of a thousand colored people, their testimony combined would have been insufficient to have arrested one of the murderers.  Master Hugh, for once, was compelled to say this state of things was too bad.  Of course, it was impossible to get any white man to volunteer his testimony in my behalf, and against the white young men.  Even those who may have sympathized with me were not prepared to do this.  It required a degree of courage unknown to them to do so; for just at that time, the slightest manifestation of humanity toward a colored person was denounced as abolitionism, and that name subjected its bearer to frightful liabilities.  The watchwords of the bloody-minded in that region, and in those days, were, “Damn the abolitionists!” and “Damn the niggers!” There was nothing done, and probably nothing would have been done if I had been killed.  Such was, and such remains, the state of things in the Christian city of Baltimore.

Master Hugh, finding he could get no redress, refused to let me go back again to Mr. Gardner.  He kept me himself, and his wife dressed my wound till I was again restored to health.  He then took me into the ship-yard of which he was foreman, in the employment of Mr. Walter Price.  There I was immediately set to calking, and very soon learned the art of using my mallet and irons.  In the course of one year from the time I left Mr. Gardner’s, I was able to command the highest wages given to the most experienced