by calling on
the Deacon, and trying to make the purchase. As we approached the
Deacon's plantation, my heart was filled with a thousand painful and
fearful apprehensions. I had the fullest confidence in the blacklegs
with whom I travelled, believing that they would do according to
promise, and go to the fullest extent of their ability to restore
peace and consolation to a bereaved family--to re-unite husband and
wife, parent and child, who had long been severed by slavery through
the agency of Deacon Whitfield. But I knew his determination in
relation to myself, and I feared his wicked opposition to a
restoration of myself and little family, which he had divided, and
soon found that my fears were not without foundation.

When we rode up and walked into his yard, the Deacon came out and
spoke to all but myself; and not finding me in tattered rags as a
substitute for clothes, nor having an iron collar or bell about my
neck, as was the case when he sold me, he appeared to be much
displeased.

"What did you bring that negro back here for?" said he.

"We have come to try to buy his wife and child; for we can find no one
who is willing to buy him alone; and we will either buy or sell so
that the family may be together," said they.

While this conversation was going on, my poor bereaved wife, who
never expected to see me again in this life, spied me and came rushing
to me through the crowd, throwing her arms about my neck exclaiming in
the most sympathetic tones, "Oh! my dear husband! I never expected to
see you again!" The poor woman was bathed with tears of sorrow and
grief. But no sooner had she reached me, than the Deacon peremptorily
commanded her to go to her work. This she did not obey, but prayed
that her master would not separate us again, as she was there alone,
far from friends and relations whom she should never meet again. And
now to take away her husband, her last and only true friend, would be
like taking her life!

But such appeals made no impression on the unfeeling Deacon's heart.
While he was storming with abusive language, and even using the gory
lash with hellish vengeance to separate husband and wife, I could see
the sympathetic teardrop, stealing its way down the cheek of the
profligate and black-leg, whose object it now was to bind up the
broken heart of a wife, and restore to the arms of a bereaved husband,
his companion.

They were disgusted at the conduct of Whitfield and cried out shame,