rly consumed their
strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle;
the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are
saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center
of your soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave whip; the
scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had
faltered under the weight of her child and her chains; that gash on her
shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend
the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely
and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See
this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad
sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where,
under the sun, can you witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking.
Yet this is but a glance at the American slave trade, as it exists at
this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave trade
is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with
a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot street, Fell's Point,
Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the
basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh,
waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was,
at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt street, by
Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in
Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on flaming
hand-bills, headed, "cash for negroes." These men were generally well
dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to drink, to
treat, and to gamble. The fate{356} of many a slave has depended upon
the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from
the arms of its mothers by bargains arranged in a state of brutal
drunkenness.

The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them,
chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number
have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of
conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New Orleans. From the
slave-prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness
of night; for since the anti-slavery agitation a certain caution is
observed.

In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often arous