both treated with supreme contempt.  Thus rejected by his father, and unable to discover any traces of his mother, he returned disheartened to Louisville, and was soon after sent to New-Orleans to be sold.  Mr. John P. Darg, a speculator in slaves, bought him; and he soon after married a girl named Mary, who belonged to his new master.  Mr. Darg went to New-York, to visit some relatives, and took Thomas with him.  It was only a few days after their arrival in the city, that the slave left him, and went to Isaac T. Hopper to ask a lodging.  When he acknowledged that he was a fugitive, intending to take refuge in Canada, it was deemed imprudent for him to remain under the roof of a person so widely known as an abolitionist; but a very benevolent and intelligent Quaker lady, near eighty years old, named Margaret Shoemaker, gladly gave him shelter.

When Friend Hopper went to his place of business, after parting with the colored stranger, he saw an advertisement in a newspaper called the Sun, offering one thousand dollars reward for the apprehension and return of a mulatto man, who had stolen seven or eight thousand dollars from a house in Varick-street.  A proportionate reward was offered for the recovery of any part of the money.  Though no names were mentioned, he had reason to conjecture that Thomas Hughes might be the mulatto in question.  He accordingly sought him out, read the advertisement to him, and inquired whether he had stolen anything from his master.  He denied having committed any theft, and said the pretence that he had done so was a mere trick, often resorted to by slaveholders, when they wanted to catch a runaway slave.  That this remark was true, Friend Hopper knew very well by his own experience; he therefore concluded it was likely that Thomas was not guilty.  He expressed this conviction in conversation on the subject with Barney Corse, a benevolent member of the Society of Friends, who was kindly disposed toward the colored people.  In compliance with Friend Hopper’s request, that gentleman waited upon the editor of the Sun, accompanied by a lawyer, and was assured that a large amount of money really had been stolen from Mr. Darg, and that if he could recover it, he was willing to give a pledge for the manumission of the slave, beside paying the promised reward to whoever would enable him to get possession of the money.  Barney Corse called upon Mr. Darg, who promptly confirmed the statement made by the editor in his name.  The Friend then promised that he, and others who were interested for the slave, would do their utmost to obtain tidings of the money, and see it safely restored, on those conditions; but he expressly stipulated that he could not do it otherwise, because he had conscientious scruples, which would prevent him, in all cases, from helping to return a fugitive slave to his master.