tectecl her in an attempt (as he supposed), to get away, threw her into prison until he .could sell her to be sent into the rice swamps; the worst punishment that could be inflicted on a slave. This was a terrible blow to Jo’s prospects, and having saved a few dollars by his industry, he left his friends in Albany, and started west under instructions just a year from the day he left the old plantation. He wanted to find a place where he could work for his board and go to school. I kept him on such terms, and he began to learn the alphabet at twenty-five years of age. He was faithful and attentive to his business and his books, and although naturally overflowing with mirth and music, he had frequent attacks of deep melancholy, amounting to almost despair, on account of the uncertainty of the fate of his wife and child.
Soon after Congress met in December, 1840, I learned that General Chaplin was in Washington reporting for his paper, the aforesaid Liberty Press, of which he was one of the editors, and I proposed to Jo to ask him to enquire after Mary, to which he assented, though with but little hope of success. But as soon as the letter, giving Mr. C. directions to guide him in looking for Mary, was mailed, Jo became very nervous, called at the post office two or three times a day, and began to wonder that the letter had not been answered before it could have reached Washington. In eight or ten days the answer came. Mr. Chaplin had found Mary living with Mr. Judson her old master. She had been in the jail three months, during which time another child was born and had died. Judson then proposed to forgive her, and take her again into his family on condition she would solemnly promise to never again attempt to run away, to which she agreed, and gave up all hope of ever seeing her husband. He told Mr. C. that he had just been offered $800 for her, but she was a favorite servant in his family ; moreover,
