397 



ly humiliating condition to which human be- 

 ings are fubjeded in a life of flavery. I hap- 

 pened to be waiting upon the quay for the 

 Lord Sheffield's boat, in order to return on 

 board, when two men, apparently white Creo- 

 les, came up, and feized a negro, who was 

 ftanding near me, accufing him of having run 

 away from his mafter. The poor black af- 

 fured them that he had no mafter, — that he 



belonged to Mrs. , that he was well 



known in the town, — and that they muft, cer- 

 tainly, have miftaken his perfon ; and, upon 

 thefe grounds, urged the impropriety of their 

 taking him to prifon. But, regardlefs of his 

 remonftrances, and of their own error, they 

 tied him with a heavy cord, fattened his hands, 

 and forced him towards the place of confine- 

 ment ! Curiofity led me to follow them. The 

 poor man ftill pleaded his innocence, and the 

 miftake they had committed, begging and pray- 

 ing to be allowed to refer them to his Mif- 

 trefs, or to another family in the town, to iden- 

 tify his perfon. Heedlefs of his proteftations 

 and entreaties they ftill dragged him on, and 

 from his only expreffing a reludance at being 

 thus, unjuftly, hurried to a prifon, one of thefe 

 hardened wretches ftruck him a violent blow 



