peared,
exciting any feelings of compassion.

A highly intelligent slave, who panted after freedom with ceaseless
longings, made many attempts to get possession of himself. For every
offence he was punished with extreme severity. At one time he was tied
up by his hands to a tree, and whipped until his back was one gore of
blood. To this terrible infliction he was subjected at intervals for
several weeks, and kept heavily ironed while at his work. His master
one day accused him of a fault, in the usual terms dictated by passion
and arbitrary power; the man protested his innocence, but was not
credited. He again repelled the charge with honest indignation. His
master's temper rose almost to frenzy; and seizing a fork, he made a
deadly plunge at the breast of the slave. The man being far his
superior in strength, caught the arm, and dashed the weapon on the
floor. His master grasped at his throat, but the slave disengaged
himself, and rushed from the apartment, having made his escape, he
fled to the woods; and after wandering about for many months, living
on roots and berries, and enduring every hardship, he was arrested and
committed to jail. Here he lay for a considerable time, allowed
scarcely food enough to sustain life, whipped in the most shocking
manner, and confined in a cell so loathsome, that when his master
visited him, he said the stench was enough to knock a man down. The
filth had never been removed from the apartment since the poor
creature had been immured in it. Although a black man, such had been
the effect of starvation and suffering, that his master declared he
hardly recognized him--his complexion was so yellow, and his hair,
naturally thick and black, had become red and scanty; an infallible
sign of long continued living on bad and insufficient food. Stripes,
imprisonment, and the gnawings of hunger, had broken his lofty spirit
for a season; and, to use his master's own exulting expression, he was
"as humble as a dog." After a time he made another attempt to escape,
and was absent so long, that a reward was offered for him, _dead or
alive_. He eluded every attempt to take him, and his master,
despairing of ever getting him again, offered to pardon him if he
would return home. It is always understood that such intelligence will
reach the runaway; and accordingly, at the entreaties of his wife and
mother, the fugitive once more consented to return to his bitter
bondage. I believe this was the last effo