, _laden_ with cash, at their
respective _stations_, near the coasts of a great American water, called
justly, by Mr. Randolph, "a Mediterranean sea," or at their several
_inland posts_, near the dividing line of Maryland and Delaware, (at
some of which they have grated prisons for the purpose) is the well
known signal for the professed _kidnappers_, like beasts of prey, to
commence their nightly invasions upon the _fleecy flocks_; extending
their ravages, (generally attended with bloodshed, and sometimes
murder,) and spreading terror and consternation amongst both freemen and
slaves throughout the _sandy regions_, from the western to the eastern
shores. These "two-legged featherless animals," or _human bloodhounds_,
when overtaken (rarely) by the messengers of law, are generally found
armed with instruments of death, sometimes with pistols with _latent_
spring daggers attached to them! Mr. Cooper, one of the representatives
to congress from Delaware, assured me that he had often been afraid to
send one of his servants out of his house in the evening, from the
danger of their being seized by kidnappers.

While at Wilmington (Del.) I accidentally heard a black woman telling
the gate-keeper of the bridge, that she had set out to go to Georgetown,
(Del.) but was returning without having reached it, for fear of being
caught on the road by the kidnappers.

[24] I was informed in Delaware, that her seller absconded in about ten
days after the outrage was committed.

[25] The mulatto youth had been purchased in the city of Washington, and
kept in it in irons several weeks, by a person who confessed his regret
that he had not removed him before the suit for the recovery of his
freedom had commenced; and that, if he had known it sooner, he would
have taken him on to ----, (the place of his residence,) even if he had
been satisfied of his being free. One Slave-Trader, to whom he had been
offered, was however so conscientious, that he refused to purchase him,
or the lad who was with him, (before mentioned) being confident that
they were illegally enslaved.

[26] I have been assured by a gentleman of the highest respectability,
that a former representative to Congress, from one of the southern
states, acknowledged to him, that he held a mulatto man as a slave,
having purchased him in company with slaves, who affirmed that he was
free born, and had been kidnapped from one of the New England states;
who was well educated, and who