is wife had been prostrated by a fever then prevalent in the
neighborhood, and he had waited upon her and watched by her bedside,
until he was worn out with exhaustion and loss of sleep. Several
neighbor women coming in one evening to watch with the invalid, he
surrendered her to their care, and retired to seek the rest he so much
needed. That night the slave-dealer came with a gang of ruffians,
burst into the house and seized their victim as he lay asleep, bound
him, after heroic struggles on his part, and dragged him away. When he
demanded the cause of his seizure, they showed him the bill of sale
they had received, and informed him that he was a slave. In this rude,
heartless manner the intelligence that he belonged to the African race
was first imparted to him, and the crushing weight of his cruel
destiny came upon him when totally unprepared. His captors hurried him
out of the neighborhood, and took him toward the Southern slave
markets. To get him black enough to sell without question, they washed
his face in tan ooze, and kept him tied in the sun, and to complete
his resemblance to a mulatto, they cut his heir short and seared it
with a hot iron to make it curly. He was sold in Georgia or Alabama,
to a hard master, by whom he was cruelly treated.

"Several months afterward he succeeded in escaping, and made his way
back to Guilford County, North Carolina. Here he learned that his wife
had died a few days after his capture, the shock of that calamity
having hastened her death, and that his children were scattered among
the neighbors. His master, thinking that he would return to his old
home, came in pursuit of him with hounds, and chased him through the
thickets and swamps. He evaded the dogs by wading in a mill-pond, and
climbing a tree, where he remained several days. Dr. George Swain, a
man of much influence in the community, had an interview with him,
and, hearing the particulars of his seizure, said he thought the
proceedings were illegal. He held a consultation with several lawyers,
and instituted proceedings in his behalf. But the unfortunate victim
of man's cruelty did not live to regain his freedom. He had been
exposed and worried so much, trailed by dogs and forced to lie in
swamps and thickets, that his health was broken down and he died
before the next term of court."--Levi Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp.
29-31.

A SLAVE OF ROYAL BLOOD.--"Among the many persons of color whom I
visited at Philadelphia, w