ht I, "are only a band of successful robbers, who
left their homes and went into Africa for the purpose of stealing and
reducing my people to slavery." I loathed them as the meanest and
the most wicked of men. As I read, behold! the very discontent so
graphically pre{125} dicted by Master Hugh, had already come upon me. I
was no longer the light-hearted, gleesome boy, full of mirth and play,
as when I landed first at Baltimore. Knowledge had come; light had
penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there lay the
bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good,
_kind master_, he was the author of my situation. The revelation haunted
me, stung me, and made me gloomy and miserable. As I writhed under the
sting and torment of this knowledge, I almost envied my fellow slaves
their stupid contentment. This knowledge opened my eyes to the horrible
pit, and revealed the teeth of the frightful dragon that was ready to
pounce upon me, but it opened no way for my escape. I have often wished
myself a beast, or a bird--anything, rather than a slave. I was wretched
and gloomy, beyond my ability to describe. I was too thoughtful to be
happy. It was this everlasting thinking which distressed and tormented
me; and yet there was no getting rid of the subject of my thoughts.
All nature was redolent of it. Once awakened by the silver trump of
knowledge, my spirit was roused to eternal wakefulness. Liberty! the
inestimable birthright of every man, had, for me, converted every object
into an asserter of this great right. It was heard in every sound, and
beheld in every object. It was ever present, to torment me with a sense
of my wretched condition. The more beautiful and charming were the
smiles of nature, the more horrible and desolate was my condition. I saw
nothing without seeing it, and I heard nothing without hearing it. I do
not exaggerate, when I say, that it looked from every star, smiled in
every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.

I have no doubt that my state of mind had something to do with the
change in the treatment adopted, by my once kind mistress toward me. I
can easily believe, that my leaden, downcast, and discontented look,
was very offensive to her. Poor lady! She did not know my trouble, and
I dared not tell her. Could I have freely made her acquainted with the
real state of my mind, and{126} given her the reasons therefor, it
might have been well for both of us. He