They arrived according to appointment.  The cleansing process was carried into effect most thoroughly, and no vermin were left to tell the tale of suffering they had caused.  Straightway the passengers were made comfortable in every way, and the spirit of freedom seemed to be burning like “fire shut up in the bones.”  The appearance alone of these men indicated their manhood, and wonderful natural ability.  The examining Committee were very desirous of hearing their story without a moment’s delay.

As Harry, from having suffered most, was the hero of this party, and withal was an intelligent man, he was first called upon to make his statement as to how times had been with him in the prison house, from his youth up.  He was about forty-six years of age, according to his reckoning, full six feet high, and in muscular appearance was very rugged, and in his countenance were evident marks of firmness.  He said that he was born a slave in North Carolina, and had been sold three times.  He was first sold when a child three years of age, the second time when he was thirteen years old, and the third and last time he was sold to Jesse Moore, from whom he fled.  Prior to his coming into the hands of Moore he had not experienced any very hard usage, at least nothing more severe than fell to the common lot of slave-boys, therefore the period of his early youth was deemed of too little interest to record in detail.  In fact time only could be afforded for noticing very briefly some of the more remarkable events of his bondage.  The examining Committee confined their interrogations to his last taskmaster.

“How did Moore come by you?” was one of the inquiries.  “He bought me,” said Harry, “of a man by the name of Taylor, nine or ten years ago; he was as bad as he could be, couldn’t be any worse to be alive.  He was about fifty years of age, when I left him, a right red-looking man, big bellied old fellow, weighs about two hundred and forty pounds.  He drinks hard, he is just like a rattlesnake, just as cross and crabbed when he speaks, seems like he could go through you.  He flogged Richmond for not ploughing the corn good, that was what he pretended to whip him for.  Richmond ran away, was away four months, as nigh as I can guess, then they cotched him, then struck him a hundred lashes, and then they split both feet to the bone, and split both his insteps, and then master took his knife and stuck it into him in many places; after he done him that way, he put him into the barn to shucking corn.  For a long time he was not able to work; when he did partly recover, he was set to work again.”