place, and that the woman was still living. Having found the house, I desired permission of the landlord to see the wounded woman; to which he assented, and directed a lad to conduct me to her room; which was in the garret over the third story of the house. On entering the room, I observed her lying upon a bed on the floor, and covered with a white woolen blanket, on which were several spots of blood, (from her wounds,) which I perceived was red, notwithstanding the opacity of her skin. Her countenance, though very pale from the shock she had received, and dejected with grief, appeared complacent and sympathetic. Both her arms were broken between the elbows and wrists, and had undoubtedly been well set and dressed; but from her restlessness, she had displaced the bones again, so that they were perceptibly crooked. have since been informed by the Mayor of the city, who is a physician, and resides not far distant from the place, that he was called to visit her immediately after her fall; and found besides her arms being broken, that the lower part of the spine was badly shattered, so that it was doubtful whether she would ever be capable of walking again, if she should survive. The lady of the Mayor said she was awakened from sleep by the fall of the woman, and heard her heavy struggling groans.

I inquired of her, whether she was asleep when she sprang from the window. She replied, "No, no more than I am now." Asking her what was the cause of her doing such a frantic act as that, she replied, "They brought me away with two of my children, and would'nt let me see my husband—they did'nt sell my husband, and I did'nt want to go;-I was so confus'd and 'istracted, that I did'nt know hardly what I was about-but I did'nt want to go, and I jumped out of the window;—but I am sorry now that I did it ;-they have carried my children off with 'em to Carolina," I was informed that the Slave Trader, who had purchased her near Bladensburgh, (she being a legal slave,) gave her to the landlord as a compensation for taking care of her. Thus her family was dispersed from north to south, and herself nearly torn in pieces, without the shadow of a hope of ever seeing or

hearing from her children again! He that can behold this "poor woman," (as a respectable citizen of Washington afterwards expressed himself, on requesting of her landlord the privilege of seeing her,) and listen to her unvarnished story; and then delineate it with the mental pencil, (quill) and then view the picture from his own hand, without a humid eye, I will confess possesses a stouter heart than I do.

The sympathy of the whole American white population, (and it is presumed of the black also, for they know how to estimate such matters by dear experience,) has recently been very justly excited towards young King Prather, and his "confus'd and 'istracted" mother roaming in search of him, along half the extent of the coast of the United States. As he was kidnapped by a son of Africa, (though not for the detestable purpose of cupidity or enslavement, but for a ladder to his own liberty,) it is presumed if Africa's Genius were permitted to offer her sentiments on the subject, she would pronounce it a retort courteous apropos, from Africa to her sister Columbia.

I have since learned many recent instances of the tragical consequences of the usurped trade in the souls and bodies of men.* I have been informed by several dif

* Extract from the preamble to the first act passed by the legis¬ lature of Pennsylvania, for the gradual abolition of slavery in that state:

"Sect. 2. AND WHEREAS, the condition of those persons who have heretofore been denominated Negro and Mulatto Slaves, has been attended with circumstances, which not only deprived them of the common blessings that they were by nature entitled to, but has cast them into the deepest afflictions by an unnatural separation of husband and wife from each other and from their children-an injury the greatness of which can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same unhappy case."

Darwin, who may well be styled an arch connoisseur, both in physiology and morality, in his classification of human diseases, includes one which he denominates "Nostalgia," and thus defines it:

"Nostalgia. An unconquerable desire of returning to one's native country, frequent in long voyages, in which the patients become

ferent persons in the District of Columbia, that a woman who had been sold in Georgetown, for the southern slave market, cut her own throat, ineffectually, while on the way, in a hack, to the same depository abovementioned; and that on the road to Alexandria, she completed her design of destroying her life, by cutting it again mortally. A statement was published in the Baltimore Telegraph a few months ago, that a female slave who had been sold in Maryland, with her child, on the way from Bladensburgh to Washington, heroically cut the throats of both her child and herself, with mortal effect. This narrative has been since confirmed by a relative of the person who sold them. An African youth, in the city of Philadelphia, lately cut his throat almost mortally, merely from the apprehension, as he said, of being sold. This information was obtained from several respectable citizens of Philadelphia, who had personal knowledge of the fact.

Believing the facts already recited are sufficient to satisfy every candid reader of the unreasonableness, injustice, and inhumanity of the prevailing interior slave trade, and of the necessity of legislative controul; I will now commence a delineation of the still more outrageous and abominable practice of seizing and selling into exile, men, women, and children, whose freedom and moral rights, are guarenteed by our national and state constitutions.

so insane as to throw themselves into the sea, mistaking it for green fields and meadows. The Swiss are said to be particularly liable to this disease, and when taken into foreign service, frequently desert from this cause, and especially after hearing or singing a particular tune, which was used in their village dances, in their native country, on which account their playing or singing this tune was punished with death. Zwingerus.

Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,

And dear that hill, which lifts him to the storms."

Goldsmith. Zoonomia, Cl. III. 1. 1. 6.

The late indefatigable Rush, in his Inquiry into the Causes of the Derangement of the Human Mind, states, that the slaves imported into the West Indies from Africa, frequently become distracted, when they are about to commence the toils of perpetual slavery, on the plantations.

In the same recess, with that mangled woman, while interrogating her, I discovered (without having the least previous intimation or even suspicion of any thing of the kind), three persons of colour, who were born free, and had been forcibly seized in the time of night, bound and transported in the night, out of their native state, (Delaware) and sold as slaves for life, to itinerant Man-Dealers in Maryland, who generally range themselves along near the line of division between the two states. One of these was a mulatto man, about 21 years of age. I found him thoroughly secured in irons. His arms were manacled with strong loops round his wrists, resembling a clevis, connected by a strong iron bolt. On the shelf, over the fire place, lay a pair of heavy rough hopples, (or hobbles,) with which he said his legs had been fettered until a short time previous, but were then secured by a pair of polished gripes, (perhaps manufactured for the purpose, resembling the patent horse fetters with locks,) connected by a strong new tug chain, with a loose end of two or three feet in length, lying upon the floor.† He stated that a journeyman to the man with whom he resided, and to whom he had been bound to service for a term of years, having decoyed him into the 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‡ just mentioned, bound

* To those speculators in human flesh, who purchase free people as well as slaves, without discrimination, I must now apply the title of Man-Dealers, instead of Slave Traders.

While interrogating him about the manner of his being seized and bound, he gave his chains a shake, by moving his feet on the floor, and with vexation muttered, "When the devil gets 'em he'll chain them." "No, no," said I, you should'nt make such speeches as that, perhaps they were brought up to such things and don't know any better." "Well, but, said he, they know what's right." I have since been assured that several instances of black man-stealing had occurred, in which fathers, sons, brothers, and even wives and daughters, were promiscuously engaged.

I was informed on my arrival in the neighborhood where this affair was transacted, that this person, on hearing that the mulatto