buying them in a few short years. Probably
not one of those beautiful girls would have brought less than fifteen
hundred or two thousand dollars at the age of fifteen. It was therefore
a great satisfaction to think, that their mothers, who knew full well to
what a fate such slave girls were destined, had labored so heroically to
snatch them out of this danger ere the critical hour arrived.

Rebecca Jones was about twenty-eight years of age; mulatto,
good-looking, considerably above medium size, very intelligent, and a
true-born heroine.

The following reward, offered by the notorious negro-trader, Hall,
proved that Rebecca and her children were not to be allowed to go free,
if slave-hunters could be induced by a heavy pecuniary consideration to
recapture them:

$300 REWARD is offered for the apprehension of negro woman,
REBECCA JONES and her three children, and man ISAIAH, belonging
to W.W. Davidson, who have disappeared since the 20th inst. The
above reward will be paid for the apprehension and delivery of
the said Negroes to my Jail, by the attorney in fact of the
owner, or the sum of $250 for the man alone, or $150 for the
woman and three children alone.

[Illustration: ]

WM. W. HALL, for the Attorney, feb. 1.

Years before her escape, her mistress died in England; and as Rebecca
had always understood, long before this event, that all the slaves were
to be freed at the death of her mistress, she was not prepared to
believe any other report. It turned out, however, as in thousands of
other instances, that no will could be found, and, of course, the
administrators retained the slave property, regardless of any verbal
expressions respecting freeing, etc. Rebecca closely watched the course
of the administrators, and in the meanwhile firmly resolved, that
neither she nor her children should ever serve another master. Rather
than submit, she declared that she would take the lives of her children
and then her own. Notwithstanding her bold and decided stand, the report
went out that she was to be sold, and that all the slaves were still to
be held in bondage. Rebecca's sympathizers and friends advised her, as
they thought for the best, to get a friend or gentleman to purchase her
for herself. To this she replied: "Not three cents would I give, nor do
I want any of my friends to buy me, not if they could get me for three
cents. It would be of no use," she contended, "as she