officious in pointing out this slave and that, as very likely to be the thief; with nothing against them but his insinuations, some were very severely punished, being flogged by this very Wilkins, and others, at his instigation, were sold away. One night, Mr. Carnie, unknown to his colored people, set a steel trap in the barn; some of the negroes, passing the barn before morning, saw Wilkins standing there, but were not aware he was caught. They called the master, that he might seize the thief before he could escape; he came and teased Wilkins during the night; in the morning, he exposed him to the view of the neighbors, and then set him at liberty without further punishment.

The very severe punishments to which slaves are subjected, for trifling offences, or none at all, their continued liability to all kinds of ill usage, without a chance of redress, and the agonizing feelings they endure at being separated from the dearest connections, drive many of them to desperation, and they abscond. They hide themselves in the woods, where they remain for months, and, in some cases, for years. When caught, they are flogged with extreme severity, their backs are pickled, and the flogging repeated as before described: after months of this torture, the back is allowed to heal, and the slave is sold away. Especially is this done when the slave has attempted to reach a free state.

In violent thunder-storms, when the whites have got between feather-beds to be safe from the lightning, I have often seen negroes, the aged as well as others, go out, and, lifting up their hands, thank God that judgment was coming at last. So cruelly are many of them used, that judgment, they think, would be a happy release from their horrible slavery.

The proprietors, though they live in luxury, generally die in debt: their negroes are so hardly treated that no profit is made by their labor. Many of them are great gamblers. At the death of a proprietor, it commonly happens that his colored people are sold towards paying his debts. So it must and will be with the masters while slavery continues: when freedom is established, I believe they will begin to prosper greatly.

Before I close this Narrative, I ought to express my grateful thanks to the many friends in the Northern States, who have encouraged and assisted me: I shall never forget to speak of their kindness, and to pray for their prosperity. I am delighted in saying, that not only to myself, but to very many other colored persons, they have lent a benevolent and helping hand. Last year, gentlemen whom I know bought no less than ten families from slavery; and this year they are pursuing the same good work. But for these numerous and heavy claims on their means and their kindness, I should have had no need to appeal to the generosity of the British public; they would gladly have helped me to redeem all my children and relations.

When I first went to the Northern States,—which is about ten years ago,—although I was free, as to the law, I was made to feel severely the difference between persons of different colors. No black man was admitted to the same seats in churches with the whites, nor to the inside of public conveyances, nor into street coaches or cabs: we had to be content with the decks of steamboats in all weathers, night and day, not even our wives or children being allowed to go below, however it might rain, or snow, or freeze; in various other ways, we were treated as though we were of a race of men below the whites. But the abolitionists boldly stood up for us, and, through them, things are much changed for the better. Now, we may sit in any part of many places of worship, and are even asked into the pews of respectable white families; many public conveyances now make no distinction between white and black. We begin to feel that we are really on the same footing as our fellow-citizens. They see we can and do conduct ourselves with propriety, and they are now admitting us, in many cases, to the same standing with themselves.

During the struggles which have procured for us this justice from our fellow-citizens, we have been in the habit of looking in public places for some well-known abolitionists, and, if none that we knew were there, we addressed any person dressed as a Quaker; these classes always took our part against ill usage, and we have to thank them for many a contest in our behalf.

We were greatly delighted by the zealous efforts and powerful eloquence in our cause of Mr. George Thompson, who came from our English friends to aid our suffering brethren. He was hated and mobbed by bad men amongst the whites; they put his life in great danger, and threatened destruction to all who sheltered him. We prayed for him, and did all we could to defend him. The Lord preserved him, and thankful were we when he escaped from our country with his life. At that time, and ever since, we have had a host of American friends, who have labored for the cause night and day; they have nobly stood up for the rights and honor of the colored man; but they did so at first in the midst of scorn and danger. Now, thank God, the case is very different. William Lloyd Garrison, who was hunted for his life by a mob in the streets of New York, has lately been chairman of a large meeting in favor of abolition, held in Faneuil Hall, the celebrated public hall of Boston, called the 'Cradle of Liberty.'

I am glad to say also that numbers of my colored brethren now escape from slavery; some by purchasing their freedom, others by quitting, through many dangers and hardships, the land of bondage. The latter suffer many privations in their attempts to reach the free states. They hide themselves, during the day, in the woods and swamps; at night, they travel, crossing rivers by swimming or by boats they may chance to meet with, and passing over hills and meadows which they do not know: in these dangerous journeys they are guided by the north-star, for they only know that the land of freedom is in the north. They subsist only on such wild fruit as they can gather, and as they are often very long on their way, they reach the free states almost like skeletons. On their arrival they have no friends but such as pity those who have been in bondage, the number of whom, I am happy to say, is increasing; but if they can meet with a man in a broad-brimmed hat and Quaker coat, they speak to him without fear—relying on him as a friend. At each place the escaped slave inquires for an abolitionist or a Quaker, and these friends of the colored man help them on their journey northwards, until they are out of the reach of danger.

Our untiring friends, the abolitionists, once obtained a law that no colored person should be seized as a slave within the free states; this law would have been of great service to us, by ridding us of all anxiety about our freedom while we remained there; but I am sorry to say, that it has lately been repealed, and that now, as before, any colored person who is said to be a slave, may be seized in the free states and carried away, no matter how long he may have resided there, as also may his children and their children, although they all may have been born there. I hope this law will soon be altered again. At present many escaped slaves are forwarded by their friends to Canada, where, under British rule, they are quite safe. There is a body of ten thousand of them in Upper Canada; they are known for their good order, and loyalty to the British government; during the late troubles, they could always be relied on for the defence of the British possessions against the lawless Americans who attempted to invade them.

As to the settlement of Liberia, on the coast of Africa, the free colored people of America do not willingly go to it. America is their home: if their forefathers lived in Africa, they themselves know nothing of