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bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of
my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too
hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for
us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order
of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him,
and the shortest nights too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable
when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me.
Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and
spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the
disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my
eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man
transformed into a brute!

Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like
stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times I
would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul,
accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and
then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition.
I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was
prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this
plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.

Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad
bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable
globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to
the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and
torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the
deep stillness of a summer's Sabbath, stood all alone upon the lofty
banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful
eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The
sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel
utterance; and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour
out my soul's complaint, in my rude way, with an apostrophe to the
moving multitude of ships:--

"You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my
chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and
I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels,
that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I
were free! O, that I wer