believe that he sometimes deceived himself into the solemn belief, that he was a sincere worshipper of the most high God; and this, too, at a time when he may be said to have been guilty of compelling his woman slave to commit the sin of adultery.  The facts in the case are these:  Mr. Covey was a poor man; he was just commencing in life; he was only able to buy one slave; and, shocking as is the fact, he bought her, as he said, for A BREEDER.  This woman was named Caroline.  Mr. Covey bought her from Mr. Thomas Lowe, about six miles from St. Michael’s.  She was a large, able-bodied woman, about twenty years old.  She had already given birth to one child, which proved her to be just what he wanted.  After buying her, he hired a married man of Mr. Samuel Harrison, to live with him one year; and him he used to fasten up with her every night!  The result was, that, at the end of the year, the miserable woman gave birth to twins.  At this result Mr. Covey seemed to be highly pleased, both with the man and the wretched woman.  Such was his joy, and that of his wife, that nothing they could do for Caroline during her confinement was too good, or too hard, to be done.  The children were regarded as being quite an addition to his wealth.

If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey.  We were worked in all weathers.  It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field.  Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night.  The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him.  I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me.  Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me.  I was broken in body, soul, and spirit.  My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!

Sunday was my only leisure time.  I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree.  At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished.  I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition.  I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear.  My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.