orrid dread of falling into
the hands of Master Andrew. He was known to us all as being a most cruel
wretch,--a common drunkard, who had, by his reckless mismanagement and
profligate dissipation, already wasted a large portion of his father's
property. We all felt that we might as well be sold at once to the
Georgia traders, as to pass into his hands; for we knew that that would
be our inevitable condition,--a condition held by us all in the utmost
horror and dread.

I suffered more anxiety than most of my fellowslaves. I had known what
it was to be kindly treated; they had known nothing of the kind. They
had seen little or nothing of the world. They were in very deed men and
women of sorrow, and acquainted with grief. Their backs had been made
familiar with the bloody lash, so that they had become callous; mine was
yet tender; for while at Baltimore I got few whippings, and few slaves
could boast of a kinder master and mistress than myself; and the thought
of passing out of their hands into those of Master Andrew--a man who,
but a few days before, to give me a sample of his bloody disposition,
took my little brother by the throat, threw him on the ground, and with
the heel of his boot stamped upon his head till the blood gushed from
his nose and ears--was well calculated to make me anxious as to my fate.
After he had committed this savage outrage upon my brother, he turned
to me, and said that was the way he meant to serve me one of these
days,--meaning, I suppose, when I came into his possession.

Thanks to a kind Providence, I fell to the portion of Mrs. Lucretia, and
was sent immediately back to Baltimore, to live again in the family
of Master Hugh. Their joy at my return equalled their sorrow at my
departure. It was a glad day to me. I had escaped a worse than lion's
jaws. I was absent from Baltimore, for the purpose of valuation and
division, just about one month, and it seemed to have been six.

Very soon after my return to Baltimore, my mistress, Lucretia, died,
leaving her husband and one child, Amanda; and in a very short time
after her death, Master Andrew died. Now all the property of my old
master, slaves included, was in the hands of strangers,--strangers who
had had nothing to do with accumulating it. Not a slave was left free.
All remained slaves, from the youngest to the oldest. If any one thing
in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction
of the infernal character of slavery, a