y escape and be secure
from your claim--nevertheless, would your understanding, your
heart, or your conscience reprove you, should you restore to
them, without price, that dear freedom, which is theirs by right
of nature, or would you not feel a satisfaction in so doing
which all the wealth of the world could not equal? At all
events, could you not so reduce the price as to place it in the
power of Peter's relatives and friends to raise the means for
their purchase? At first, I doubt not, but that you will think
my appeal very unreasonable; but, sir, serious reflection will
decide, whether the money demanded by you, after all, will be of
as great a benefit to you, as the satisfaction you would find in
bestowing so great a favor upon those whose entire happiness in
this life depends mainly upon your decision in the matter. If
the entire family cannot be purchased or freed, what can Vina
and her daughter be purchased for? Hoping, sir, to hear from
you, at your earliest convenience, I subscribe myself,

Your obedient servant, WM. STILL.

To B. McKiernon, Esq.

No reply to this letter was ever received from McKiernon. The cause of
his reticence can be as well conjectured by the reader as the writer.

Time will not admit of further details kindred to this narrative. The
life, struggles, and success of Peter and his family were ably brought
before the public in the "Kidnapped and the Ransomed," being the
personal recollections of Peter Still and his wife "Vina," after forty
years of slavery, by Mrs. Kate E.R. Pickard; with an introduction by
Rev. Samuel J. May, and an appendix by William H. Furness, D.D., in
1856. But, of course it was not prudent or safe, in the days of Slavery,
to publish such facts as are now brought to light; all such had to be
kept concealed in the breasts of the fugitives and their friends.

[Illustration: PETER STILL ]

[Illustration: CHARITY STILL ]

The following brief sketch, touching the separation of Peter and his
mother, will fitly illustrate this point, and at the same time explain
certain mysteries which have been hitherto kept hidden--

THE SEPARATION.

With regard to Peter's separation from his mother, when a little boy, in
few words, the facts were these: His parents, Levin and Sidney, were
both slaves on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. "I will die before I
submit to the yoke," was the declaration of