s three
years before I had purged my language of slavery's idioms; it was four
years before I had thrown off the crouching aspect of slavery; and now the
evil that besets me is a great lack of that general information, the
foundation of which is most effectually laid in that part of life which I
served as a slave. When I consider how much now, more than ever, depends
upon sound and thorough education among coloured men, I am grievously
overwhelmed with a sense of my deficiency, and more especially as I can
never hope now to make it up. If I know my own heart, I have no ambition
but to serve the cause of suffering humanity; all that I have desired or
sought, has been to make me more efficient for good. So far I have some
consciousness that I have done my utmost; and should my future days be few
or many, I am reconciled to meet the last account, hoping to be acquitted
of any wilful neglect of duty; but I shall have to go to my last account
with this charge against the system of slavery, "_Vile monster! thou hast
hindered my usefulness, by robbing me of my early education._"

Oh! what might I have been now, but for this robbery perpetrated upon me
as soon as I saw the light. When the monster heard that a man child was
born, he laughed, and said, "It is mine." When I was laid in the cradle,
he came and looked on my face, and wrote down my name upon his barbarous
list of chattels personal, on the same list where he registered his
horses, hogs, cows, sheep, and even his _dogs!_ Gracious Heaven, is there
no repentance for the misguided men who do these things!

The only harm I wish to slaveholders is, that they may be speedily
delivered from the guilt of a sin, which, if not repented of, must bring
down the judgment of Almighty God upon their devoted heads. The least I
desire for the slave is, that he may be speedily released from the pain of
drinking a cup whose bitterness I have sufficiently tasted, to know that
it is insufferable.

CHAPTER VI.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY I LEFT IN SLAVERY--PROPOSAL TO PURCHASE MYSELF
AND PARENTS--HOW MET BY MY OLD MASTER.

It is but natural that the reader should wish to hear a word about the
family I left behind.

There are frequently large slave families with whom God seems to deal in a
remarkable manner. I believe my family is an instance.

I have already stated that when I fled, I left a father, mother, and
eleven brothers and sisters. These were all, except my oldest bro