r offences existing only in the diabolical
fancies of their tormentors. The truth is, it was the love these poor
wretches bore their wives, children, and native soil, for which they
were punished. They were commonly bound two and two by chains, riveted
to iron collars fastened around their necks, more and more closely, as
their drivers had more and more reason to suspect a desire to escape. If
they were conveyed in wagons, as they sometimes were, additional chains
were so fixed, as to connect the right ancle of one with the left ancle
of another, so that they were fastened foot to foot, and neck to neck.
If a disposition to complain, or to grieve, was manifested by any of
them, the mouths of such were instantly stopped with a gag. If,
notwithstanding this, the overflowings of sorrow found a passage through
other channels, they were checked by the 'scourge inexorable;'--the
cruel monsters thus endeavoring to lessen the appearance of pain, by
increasing its reality. These were scenes of ordinary occurrence; troops
of these poor slaves were continually seen fettered as before described,
marching two and two, with commanders before and behind, swords by their
sides, and pistols in their belts--the triumphant victors over unarmed
women and children. The sufferings of their victims, were, if possible,
increased, when they were compelled to stop for the night. They were
crowded in cellars, and loaded with an additional number of fetters. On
those routes usually taken by them to the South, stated taverns were
selected as their resting places for the night. In these, dungeons under
ground were specially contrived for their reception. Iron staples, with
rings in them, were fixed at proper places in the walls; to these,
chains were welded; and to these chains the fetters of the prisoners
were locked, as the means of certain safety. It was usual every day for
these slave-drivers to keep a strict record of the imagined offences of
their slaves; which, if not to their satisfaction expiated by suffering
during the day, remained upon the register until its close; when, in the
midst of midnight dungeon horrors, goaded with a weight of fetters, in
addition to those which had galled them during their weary march, these
reputed sins were atoned by their blood, which was made to trickle down
'the scourge with triple thongs.'"

Such was the evil with which Elisha Tyson, when "young, solitary, and
friendless," undertook to grapple; the means h