THE autumn of 1850 brought an event freighted with deep significance to me. My mother died.

This and many others only confirmed me in the opinion, planted when I saw the sale of Martha Ann, and growing steadily thereafter, that slavery was an accursed business, and that the sooner my people were relieved of it, the better.

Of private differences personal to himself, my brother had none.

However the Southern man may have been master of the negro, there were compensatory processes whereby certain negroes were masters of their masters' children.

In such a condition of affairs, the practical difference between the abolitionist and the sympathizer, to the man who lost his slave and could not recover it, was very nebulous.

As early as the autumn of 1862, I was made very happy by being sent to school.

I was a tried seaman when, for the first time, I set foot upon the soil of my country, and took up my residence where my people had lived for over two hundred years.