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; from whence one of the Man-Dealers, (who has since been advertised as a man-stealer, in a dif ferent 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 man had been intercepted at Washington, said he had a bad pain on his mind, and believed he should clear out; which he had done accordingly. *Thos. Clarkson states, in his History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, that the arrival of slave ships, on the coasts of Africa, was the uniform signal for the immediate commencement of wars for the attainment of prisoners, for sale and exportation to America and the West Indies." In Maryland and Delaware, the same drama is now performed in miniature. The arrival of the Man-Traffickers, laden with cash, at their respective stations, near the coasts of a great American water, called justly, by Mr. Randolph a Mediterranean sea," or at their several inland posts, near the dividing line of Maryland and Delaware, (at some of which they have grated prisons for the purpose) is the well known signal for the professed kidnappers, like beasts of prey, to commence their nightly invasions upon the fleecy flocks; extending their ravages, (generally attended with bloodshed, and sometimes murder,) and spreading terror and consternation amongst both freemen and slaves throughout the sandy regions, from the western to the eastern shores. These "two-legged featherless animals," or human blood-hounds, when overtaken (rarely) by the messengers of law, are generally found armed with instruments of death, sometimes with pistols with latent spring daggers attached to them! Mr. Cooper, one of the representatives to congress from Delaware, assured me that he had often been afraid to send one of his servants out of his house in the evening, from the danger of their being seized by kidnappers. While at Wilmington (Del.) I accidentally heard a black woman telling the gate-keeper of the bridge, that she had set out to go to Georgetown, (Del.) but was returning without having reached it, for fear of being caught on the road by the kidnappers. 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. 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 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, (two of whom she said then stood indicted for having seized and carried her off at a former time,) 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 endeavoring to fix the bandage over her eyes, that she seized his cheek with her teeth, and tore a piece of it entirely off. She said one of them struck her head several times with a stick of wood, from the wounds of which she was almost covered with blood. She shewed me a large scar upon her forehead, occasioned by one of the blows, which a gentleman who saw her, the day previous to her seizure, has since informed me was not there before. She said, while she was struggling against them, and screaming, the man in whose house she lived, bawled out" choak the d--d b--h-don't let her halloo-she'll scare my wife!" Having conquered her by superior force, she said, they |