in jail scarcely twenty minutes, when a swarm of slave
traders, and agents for slave traders, flocked into jail to look at us,
and to ascertain if we were for sale. Such a set of beings I never saw
before! I felt myself surrounded by so many fiends from perdition. A
band of pirates never looked more like their father, the devil. They
laughed and grinned over us, saying, "Ah, my boys! we have got you,
haven't we?" And after taunting us in various ways, they one by one
went into an examination of us, with intent to ascertain our value.
They would impudently ask us if we would not like to have them for our
masters. We would make them no answer, and leave them to find out as
best they could. Then they would curse and swear at us, telling us that
they could take the devil out of us in a very little while, if we were
only in their hands.

While in jail, we found ourselves in much more comfortable quarters than
we expected when we went there. We did not get much to eat, nor that
which was very good; but we had a good clean room, from the windows of
which we could see what was going on in the street, which was very much
better than though we had been placed in one of the dark, damp cells.
Upon the whole, we got along very well, so far as the jail and its
keeper were concerned. Immediately after the holidays were over,
contrary to all our expectations, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Freeland came up
to Easton, and took Charles, the two Henrys, and John, out of jail, and
carried them home, leaving me alone. I regarded this separation as
a final one. It caused me more pain than any thing else in the whole
transaction. I was ready for any thing rather than separation. I
supposed that they had consulted together, and had decided that, as I
was the whole cause of the intention of the others to run away, it was
hard to make the innocent suffer with the guilty; and that they had,
therefore, concluded to take the others home, and sell me, as a warning
to the others that remained. It is due to the noble Henry to say, he
seemed almost as reluctant at leaving the prison as at leaving home
to come to the prison. But we knew we should, in all probability,
be separated, if we were sold; and since he was in their hands, he
concluded to go peaceably home.

I was now left to my fate. I was all alone, and within the walls of a
stone prison. But a few days before, and I was full of hope. I expected
to have been safe in a land of freedom; but now I was cov