, listening to the

"----foreign echoes from the street,
Faint sounds of revel, traffic, conflict keen--
And, thinking that man's reiterated feet
Have gone such ways since e'er the world has been,
I wondered how each oft-used tone and glance
Retains its might and old significance."

My only crime was seeking for that freedom which was my birthright! I
heard Mr. Mitchell tell his wife that he did not believe in slavery,
yet, through his instrumentality, I was shut away from the sunlight,
because he was determined to prove me a slave, and thus keep me in
bondage. Consistency, thou art a jewel!

At the time my mother entered suit for her freedom, she was not
instructed to mention her two children, Nancy and Lucy, so the white
people took advantage of this flaw, and showed a determination to use
every means in their power to prove that I was not her child.

This gave my mother an immense amount of trouble, but she had girded
up her loins for the fight, and, knowing that she was right, was
resolved, by the help of God and a good lawyer, to win my case against
all opposition.

After advice by competent persons, mother went to Judge Edward Bates
and begged him to plead the case, and, after fully considering the
proofs and learning that my mother was a poor woman, he consented to
undertake the case and make his charges only sufficient to cover his
expenses. It would be well here to give a brief sketch of Judge Bates,
as many people wondered that such a distinguished statesman would take
up the case of an obscure negro girl.

Edward Bates was born in Belmont, Goochland county, Va., September,
1793. He was of Quaker descent, and inherited all the virtues of that
peace-loving people. In 1812, he received a midshipman's warrant, and
was only prevented from following the sea by the influence of his
mother, to whom he was greatly attached. Edward emigrated to Missouri
in 1814, and entered upon the practice of law, and, in 1816, was
appointed prosecuting lawyer for the St. Louis Circuit. Toward the
close of the same year, he was appointed Attorney General for the new
State of Missouri, and in 1826, while yet a young man, was elected
representative to congress as an anti-Democrat, and served one term.
For the following twenty-five years, he devoted himself to his
profession, in which he was a shining light. His probity and
uprightness attracted to him a class of people who were in the right
and only sou