some slight offence given by his mother to her employer, a fatal blow inflicted on her temple, aimed in a moment of phrenzied brutality, levelled her with the dust; presenting to the negro child a spectacle that filled his young, warm heart with horror! Shrieks and cries!—what might they avail?—could they restore the bleeding, the expiring victim to whom he owed his birth? Attractive were the features, shape and gait of that negress; not less so those of the boy, who bore a striking resemblance to her. The sole object of her love—the consoler in her toils—the soother of her existence—all in all to her, she had been the same to him.
A sudden dread of discovery, or remorse of conscience, arising in the author of so much misery, determined him to sell the young afflicted African to the American captain of a vessel trading in slaves, lately arrived from the coast of Guinea. The new master of the young negro, being no stranger to the source whence flowed his tears of grief, and not callous to the miseries of those depressed by fortune to servile dependence, noticed Robert (as he had been named) above his fellows in slavery. This kindness not only lightened the poor boy's sorrow, but caused him, in the expressions of his gratitude, to show he possessed
