n with an eagle nose sat
impassive, and I set him down for one of the king's ministers.

Presently I came out into a wide space, which I knew to be Charing Cross
by the statue of Charles the First which stood in the centre of it, and
the throat of a street which was just in front of me must be the Strand.
Here all was life and bustle. On one hand was Golden's Hotel, and a
crowded mail-coach was dashing out from the arch beneath it, the horn
blowing merrily; on the other hand, so I was told by a friendly man in
brown, was Northumberland House, the gloomy grandeur whereof held my
eyes for a time. And I made bold to ask in what district were those who
had dealings with the colonies. He scanned me with a puzzling look of
commiseration.

"Ye're not a-going to sell yereself for seven year, my lad?" said he. "I
was near that myself when I was young, and I thank God' to this day that
I talked first to an honest man, even as you are doing. They'll give
ye a pretty tale,--the factors,--of a land of milk and honey, when it's
naught but stripes and curses yell get."

And he was about to rebuke me hotly, when I told him I had come from
Maryland, where I was born.

"Why, ye speak like a gentleman!" he exclaimed. "I was informed that all
talk like naygurs over there. And is it not so of your redemptioners?"

I said that depended upon the master they got.

"Then I take it ye are looking for the lawyers, who mostly represent the
planters. And y e'll find them at the Temple or Lincoln's Inn."

I replied that he I sought was not an attorney, but a man of business.
Whereupon he said that I should find all those in a batch about the
North and South American Coffee House, in Threadneedle Street. And he
pointed me into the Strand, adding that I had but to follow my nose to
St. Paul's, and there inquire.

I would I might give you some notion of the great artery of London in
those days, for it has changed much since I went down it that heavy
morning in April, 1770, fighting my way. Ay, truly, fighting my way, for
the street then was no place for the weak and timid, when bullocks ran
through it in droves on the way to market, when it was often jammed from
wall to wall with wagons, and carmen and truckmen and coachmen swung
their whips and cursed one another to the extent of their lungs. Near
St. Clement Danes I was packed in a crowd for ten minutes while two of
these fellows formed a ring and fought for the right of way, stopping
the tr