prang from the
window. She replied, "No, no more than I am now." Asking her what was
the cause of her doing such a frantic act as that, she replied, "They
brought me away with two of my children, and wouldn't let me see my
husband--they didn't sell my husband, and I didn't want to go';--I was
so confused and 'istracted, that I didn't know hardly what I was
about--but I didn't want to go, and I jumped out of the window;--but I
am sorry now that I did it;--they have carried my children off with 'em
to Carolina." I was informed that the Slave Trader, who had purchased
her near Bladensburgh, (she being a _legal_ slave,) gave her to the
landlord, as a compensation for taking care of her. Thus her family was
dispersed from north to south, and herself _nearly_ torn in pieces,
without the shadow of a hope of ever seeing or hearing from her
_children_ again! He that can behold this "poor woman," (as a
respectable citizen of Washington afterwards expressed himself, on
requesting of her landlord the privilege of seeing her,) and listen to
her _unvarnished story_; and then delineate it with the mental pencil,
(_quill_) and then view the picture from his _own hand_, without a
_humid eye_, I will confess possesses a _stouter heart_ than I do.

59. The sympathy of the whole American white population, (and it is
presumed of the black also, for they know how to estimate such matters
by dear experience,) has recently been very justly excited towards young
King Prather and his "confus'd and 'istracted" mother roaming in search
of him, along half the extent of the coast of the United States. As he
was kidnapped by a son of Africa, (though not for the detestable purpose
of cupidity or enslavement, but for a ladder to his own liberty,) it is
presumed if Africa's Genius were permitted to offer her sentiments on
the subject, she would pronounce it a _retort courteous apropos_, from
Africa to her sister Columbia.

60. I have since learned many recent instances of the tragical
consequences of the usurped trade in the souls and bodies of men.[19] I
have been informed by several different persons in the district of
Columbia, that a woman who had been sold in Georgetown, for the southern
slave market, cut her own throat, ineffectually, while on the way, in a
hack, to the same depository above mentioned; and that on the road to
Alexandria she completed her design of destroying her life, by cutting
it again mortally. A statement was published in the