 a course of time endured, rendered me less shocked and grieved at this, than many other con∣tingencies.

It seemed in my power to die, and disappoint the malice of my op∣pressors. It was only to remit a little, a very little care of myself, and my consti∣tution would finally give way. Perhaps I should have delivered myself wholly up to this idea, but that the first great tie of nature, still wound round my bleeding heart. My fate, said I to myself, is fully, is finally accomplished. A sad inheritor of my mother's misfortunes, methinks they are all only retraced in me—led like her, a guiltless captive through a vindictive mob, the object of vulgar in∣sult, and opprobrium—like her enclosed unjustly in a prison, even in the bloom of life, a broken constitution is anticipating the infirmities of age. And shall the si∣militude end here? No, let me like her, extract fortitude from each accumulating injury, and if the will of my Maker shortens the common term of life alloted to mortality, oh let me come into his presence a spotless martyr! and thou, sweet babe, permitted like the palm tree to flourish under oppression, surely for

some great end hast thou survived the suc∣cession of calamities which foreran thy existence, nor dare thy mother once wish to desert thee!
The days, Madam, thus strangely past on. The female slave I have mentioned appeared every morning, and performing the common offices of life in silence, placed near me the food allotted, and va∣nished till the next. Imagine not I went on thus, without attempting at least to ascertain my imputed crime, but I found the poor wretch was so totally deaf, that not one word reached her, nor did she speak any other language than her own, and very imperfect Spanish, to which I was a stranger. Neither could I convey to her by signs, ideas I could find no vi∣sible object to represent; the tender graces of my daughter, nevertheless operated gradually on the untaught soul of the Negro, and I had reason to think she would even have connived at my escape, but that such a measure would only have increased my misfortunes, while thus without a friend, a home, or a hope.

One only circumstance embittered my mind with distant remembrances; the tower in which I was confined adjoined to the fort, and had one window com∣manding the sea, the other looked toward the inland country. The cannon con∣stantly proclaimed the arrival, or depar∣ture of every vessel, and my eager heart irresistibly impelled me towards the win∣dow. But it was not for
