rs from Mr. Gardiner
were, to do whatever the carpenters commanded me to do. This was placing
me at the beck and call of about seventy-five men. I was to regard all
these as masters. Their word was to be my law. My situation was a most
trying one. At times I needed a dozen pair of hands. I was called a
dozen ways in the space of a single minute. Three or four voices would
strike my ear at the same moment. It was--"Fred., come help me to cant
this timber here." "Fred., come carry this timber yonder."--"Fred.,
bring that roller here."--"Fred., go get a fresh can of water."--"Fred.,
come help saw off the end of this timber."--"Fred., go quick and get the
crow bar."--"Fred., hold on the end of this fall."--"Fred., go to the
blacksmith's shop, and get a new punch."--{239}

"Hurra, Fred.! run and bring me a cold chisel."--"I say, Fred., bear
a hand, and get up a fire as quick as lightning under that
steam-box."--"Halloo, nigger! come, turn this grindstone."--"Come, come!
move, move! and _bowse_ this timber forward."--"I say, darkey, blast
your eyes, why don't you heat up some pitch?"--"Halloo! halloo! halloo!"
(Three voices at the same time.) "Come here!--Go there!--Hold on where
you are! D--n you, if you move, I'll knock your brains out!"

Such, dear reader, is a glance at the school which was mine, during,
the first eight months of my stay at Baltimore. At the end of the
eight months, Master Hugh refused longer to allow me to remain with Mr.
Gardiner. The circumstance which led to his taking me away, was a brutal
outrage, committed upon me by the white apprentices of the ship-yard.
The fight was a desperate one, and I came out of it most shockingly
mangled. I was cut and bruised in sundry places, and my left eye was
nearly knocked out of its socket. The facts, leading to this barbarous
outrage upon me, illustrate a phase of slavery destined to become an
important element in the overthrow of the slave system, and I may,
therefore state them with some minuteness. That phase is this: _the
conflict of slavery with the interests of the white mechanics and
laborers of the south_. In the country, this conflict is not so
apparent; but, in cities, such as Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans,
Mobile, &c., it is seen pretty clearly. The slaveholders, with a
craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the
poor, laboring white man against the blacks, succeeds in making the
said white man almost as much a slave as the