e fields, some distance from the house,
late in the evening, on pretence of hunting oppossums, two strangers
rushed upon him with ropes in their hands, and with the assistance of
the person[22] just mentioned, bound his hands, and led him with a
pistol held each side of him (with which he said they threatened to
shoot him if he made any alarm,) 15 or 20 miles, where he was secreted
till the next evening; when another person came with a chaise and
conveyed him to a tavern in Maryland, a little over the line;[23] from
whence one of the Man-Dealers, (who has since been advertised as a
man-stealer, in a different case,) brought him to Washington in
manacles, and sold him to another, as a slave for life. He said his
_Driver_ overhearing him tell a coloured woman near Annapolis, that his
parents (both of whom are light coloured mulattos) were free-born,
threatened to shoot him, if he should catch him talking to any body
again about his being free. He said the trader did strike him on the
head with his fist, after his arrival at Washington, for telling a
person to whom he was offered for sale, that he was lawfully free,
and threatened to flog him if he should fail of selling him in the city
on that account. He also stated, that another boy, about sixteen, was
brought off with him at the same time, and sold for a slave in
Washington, who was lawfully free, and had been sold to the traders, by
a person to whom the boy's father had let him to service.

62. This statement has been since confirmed by corroborative
information; and I am in possession of memorandums, by which the boy
might probably be traced and found.

[Illustration: Paragraph 63.

KIDNAPPING.]

63. The others, whom I found in the same garret, and at the same time,
were a young black widow woman, with an infant at the breast, both of
whom were born free. Her husband had died but a few days previous to her
seizure, and she was in a state of pregnancy at the time. She stated,
that the man in whose house she resided, together with his brother, and
three other persons, came into the room (a kitchen,) where she was in
bed, seized and dragged her out;--fastened a noose round her neck, to
prevent her from screaming, and attempted to blindfold her, which she
resisted with such violence, that she prevented them from succeeding.
She said, while one of them was endeavouring to fix the bandage over her
eyes, that she seized his cheek with her teeth, and tore a piece of it