each New Orleans; he positively refused
to carry out the previous evening's contract, thus leaving her in the
hands of her mistress, with the advice, that she should "doctor her up."

The mistress, not disposed to be defeated, obviated the difficulty by
selecting a little boy, made a lot of the two, and thus made it an
inducement to a purchaser to buy the sick woman; the boy and the woman
brought $700.

In the sale of her children, Cordelia was as little regarded as if she
had been a cow.

"I felt wretched," she said, with emphasis, "when I heard that Nancy had
been sold," which was not until after she had been removed. "But," she
continued, "I was not at liberty to make my grief known to a single
white soul. I wept and couldn't help it." But remembering that she was
liable, "on the first insult," to be sold herself, she sought no
sympathy from her mistress, whom she describes as "a woman who shows as
little kindness towards her servants as any woman in the States of
America. She neither likes to feed nor clothe well."

With regard to flogging, however, in days past, she had been up to the
mark. "A many a slap and blow" had Cordelia received since she arrived
at womanhood, directly from the madam's own hand.

One day smarting under cruel treatment, she appealed to her mistress in
the following strain: "I stood by your mother in all her sickness and
nursed her till she died!" "I waited on your niece, night and day for
months, till she died." "I waited upon your husband all my life--in his
sickness especially, and shrouded him in death, etc., yet I am treated
cruelly." It was of no avail.

Her mistress, at one time, was the owner of about five hundred slaves,
but within the last few years she had greatly lessened the number by
sales.

She stood very high as a lady, and was a member of the Episcopal Church.

To punish Cordelia, on several occasions, she had been sent to one of
the plantations to work as a field hand. Fortunately, however, she found
the overseers more compassionate than her mistress, though she received
no particular favors from any of them.

Asking her to name the overseers, etc., she did so. The first was
"Marks, a thin-visaged, poor-looking man, great for swearing." The
second was "Gilbert Brower, a very rash, portly man." The third was
"Buck Young, a stout man, and very sharp." The fourth was "Lynn Powell,
a tall man with red whiskers, very contrary and spiteful." There was
also a fifth one,