her. Since age and infirmity have rendered her of little value to her
"owners," she is permitted to read as much as she pleases; this she
can do, with the aid of glasses, in the old family Bible, which is
almost the only book she has ever looked into. This with some little
mending for the black children, is all she does; she is still held as
a slave. I well remember what a _heart-rending scene_ there was in the
family when _my father sold her husband_; this was, I suppose,
thirty-five years ago. And yet my father was considered one of the
best of masters. I know of few who were better, but of _many_ who were
worse.

The last time I saw my father, which was in the fall of 1832, he
promised me that he would free all his slaves at his death. He died
however without doing it; and I have understood since, that he omitted
it, through the influence of Rev. Dr. Speece, a Presbyterian minister,
who lived in the family, and was a _warm friend of the Colonization
Society_.

About the year 1809 or 10, I became a student of Rev. George Bourne;
he was the first abolitionist I had ever seen, and the first I had
ever heard pray or plead for the oppressed, which gave me the first
misgivings about the _innocence_ of slaveholding. I received
impressions from Mr. Bourne which I could not get rid of,[6] and
determined in my own mind that when I settled in life, it should be in
a free state; this determination I carried into effect in 1813, when I
removed to this place, which I supposed at that time, to be all the
opposition to slavery that was necessary, but the moment I became
convinced that all slaveholding was in itself _sinful_, I became an
abolitionist, which was about four years ago.

[Footnote 6: Mr. Bourne resided seven years in Virginia, "in perils
among false brethren; fiercely persecuted for his faithful testimony
against slavery. More than twenty years since he published a work
entitled 'The Book and Slavery irreconcileable.'"]

TESTIMONY OF ANGELINA GRIMKE WELD.

Mrs. Weld is the youngest daughter of the late Judge Grimke, of the
Supreme Court of South Carolina, and a sister of the late Hon. Thomas
S. Grimke, of Charleston.

Fort Lee, Bergen Co., New Jersey, Fourth month 6th, 1839.

I sit down to comply with thy request, preferred in the name of the
Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The
responsibility laid upon me by such a request, leaves me no option.
While I live, and slavery lives, I _