exhibited on sale. They made them up with far sadder feelings
than they would have sewed on their own shrouds. Hope had
almost died out of their bosoms. A few days before the gang
were to be sent off, their sister made them a sad farewell visit.
They mingled their prayers and tears, and the girls made up
little tokens of remembrance to send by her as parting gifts to
their brothers and sisters, and aged father and mother; and
with a farewell sadder than that of a death-bed, the sisters
parted.
The evening before the coffle was to start drew on. Mary
and Emily went to the house to bid Bruin's family good-bye.
Bruin had a little daughter who had been a pet and favourite
with the girls. She clung round them, cried, and begged them
not to go. Emily told her that if she wished to have them
stay, she must go and ask her father. Away ran the little
pleader, full of her errand; and was so very earnest in her
importunities, that he, to pacify her, said he would consent to
their remaining, if his partner, Captain Hill, would do so. At
this time Bruin, hearing Mary crying aloud in the prison, went
up to see her. With all the earnestness of despair, she made
her last appeal to his feelings. She begged him to make the
case his own, to think of his own dear little daughter--what if
she were exposed tobe torn away from every friend on earth,
and cut off from all hope of redemption, at the very moment,
too, when deliverance was expected! Bruin was not absolutely
a man of stone, and this agonising appeal brought tears to his
eyes. He gave some encouragement that, if Hill would consent,
they need not be sent off with the gang. A sleepless night
followed, spent in weeping, groaning, and prayer. Morning
at last dawned; and, according to orders received the day
before, they prepared themselves to go, and even put on their
bonnets and shawls, and stood ready for the word to be given.
When the very last tear of hope was shed, and they were going
out to join the gang, Bruin's heart relented. He called them
to him, and told them they might remain! Oh, how glad were
their hearts made by this, as they might now hope on a little
longer! Either the entreaties of little Martha or Mary's plea
with Bruin had prevailed.
Soon the gang was started on foot--men, women, and chil-
dren, two and two, the men all handcuffed together, the right
wrist of one to the left wrist of the other, and a chain passing
through the middle from the handcuffs of one couple to those
of the next. The women and children walked in the same
manner throughout, handcuffed or chained. Drivers went be-
fore and at the side, to take up those who were sick or lame.
They were obliged to set off singing! accompanied with fiddles
and banjoes!--“For they that carried us away captive required
of us a song, and they that wasted us required of us mirth.”
And this is a scene of daily occurrence in a Christian country!
and Christian ministers say that the right to do these things is
given by God himself!!
Meanwhile poor old Paul Edmondson went northward to
supplicate aid. Any one who should have travelled in the cars
at that time might have seen a venerable-looking black man, all
whose air and attitude indicated a patient humility, and who
seemed to carry a weight of overwhelming sorrow, like one who had
long been acquainted with grief. That man was Paul Edmondson.
Alone, friendless, unknown, and, worst of all, black, he came
into the great bustling city of New York, to see if there was
any one there who could give him twenty-five hundred dollars
to buy his daughters with. Can anybody realise what a poor
man's feelings are, who visits a great, bustling, rich city, alone
and unknown, for such an object? The writer has now, in a
letter from a slave father and husband who was visiting Port-
land on a similar errand, a touching expression of it:
I walked all day, till I was tired and discouraged. O! Mrs. S--, when I see
so many people who seem to have so many more things than they want or know
what to do with, and then think that I have worked hard, till I am past forty, all
my life, and don't own even my own wife and children, it makes me feel sick and
discouraged!
So sick at heart and discouraged felt Paul Edmondson. He
went to the Anti-Slavery Office, and made his case known. The
sum was such a large one, and seemed to many so exorbitant,
that though they pitied the poor father, they were disheartened
about raising it. They wrote to Washington to authenticate the
particulars of the story, and wrote to Bruin and Hill to see if
there could be any reduction of price. Meanwhile the poor old
man looked sadly from one adviser to another. He was recom-
mended to go to the Rev. H. W. Beecher, and tell his story.
He inquired his way to his door--ascended the steps to ring
the door-bell, but his heart failed him: he sat down on the
steps, weeping!
There Mr. Beecher found him. He took him in, and inquired
his story. There was to be a public meeting that night to raise
money. The hapless father begged him to go and plead for his
children. He did go, and spoke as if he were pleading for his
own father and sisters. Other clergymen followed in the same
strain, the meeting became enthusiastic, and the money was
raised on the spot, and poor old Paul laid his head that night
on a grateful pillow--not to sleep, but to give thanks!
Meanwhile the girls had been dragging on anxious days in the
slave-prison. They were employed in sewing for Bruin's family,
staying sometimes in the prison, and sometimes in the house.
It is to be stated here that Mr. Bruin is a man of very
different character from many in his trade. He is such a man
as never would have been found in the profession of a slave-
trader, had not the most respectable and religious part of the
community defended the right to buy and sell, as being conferred
by God himself. It is a fact, with regard to this man, that he
was one of the earliest subscribers to the National Era, in the
District of Columbia; and when a certain individual there
brought himself into great peril by assisting fugitive slaves, and
there was no one found to go bail for him, Mr. Bruin came
forward and performed this kindness.
While we abhor the horrible system and the horrible trade
with our whole soul, there is no harm, we suppose, in wishing
that such a man had a better occupation. Yet we cannot forbear
reminding all such that, when we come to give our account at
the judgment-seat of Christ, every man must speak for himself
alone; and that Christ will not accept as an apology for sin the
word of all the ministers and all the synods in the country. He
has given fair warning, “Beware of false prophets;” and if
people will not beware of them, their blood is upon their own
heads.
The girls, while under Mr. Bruin's care, were treated with as
much kindness and consideration as could possibly consist with
the design of selling them. There is no doubt that Bruin was
personally friendly to them, and really wished most earnestly
that they might be ransomed; but then he did not see how he
was to lose two thousand five hundred dollars. He had just
the same difficulty on this subject that some New York members
of churches have had, when they have had slaves brought into
their hands as security for Southern debts. He was sorry for
them, and wished them well, and hoped Providence would pro-
vide for them when they were sold, but still he could not afford
to lose his money; and while such men remain elders and com-
municants in churches in New York, we must not be surprised
that there remain slave-traders in Alexandria.
It is one great art of the enemy of souls to lead men to com-
pound for their participation in one branch of sin by their
righteous horror of another. The slave-trader has been the
general scape-goat on whom all parties have vented their indig-
nation, while buying of him and selling to him.
There is an awful warning given in the fiftieth Psalm to those
who in word have professed religion and in deed consented to
iniquity, where from the judgment-seat Christ is represented as
thus addressing them:--“What hast thou to do to declare my
statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant into thy mouth,
seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind
thee? When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with
him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.”
One thing is certain, that all who do these things, openly or
secretly, must, at last, make up their account with a Judge who
is no respecter of persons, and who will just as soon condemn
an elder in the church for slave-trading as a professed trader;
nay, He may make it more tolerable for the Sodom and Gomorrah
of the trade than for them--for it may be, if the trader had the
means of grace that they have had, that he would have repented
long ago.
But to return to our history.--The girls were sitting sewing
near the open window of their cage, when Emily said to Mary,
“There, Mary, is that white man we have seen from the North.”
They both looked, and in a moment more saw their own dear
father. They sprang and ran through the house and the office,
and into the street, shouting as they ran, followed by Bruin, who
said he thought the girls were crazy. In a moment they were
in their father's arms, but observed that he trembled exceedingly,
and that his voice was unsteady. They eagerly inquired if the
money was raised for their ransom. Afraid of exciting their
hopes too soon, before their free papers were signed, he said he
would talk with them soon, and went into the office with Mr.
Bruin and Mr. Chaplin. Mr. Bruin professed himself sincerely
glad, as undoubtedly he was, that they had brought the money;
but seemed much hurt by the manner in which he had been
spoken of by the Rev. H. W. Beecher at the liberation meeting
in New York, thinking it hard that no difference should be made
between him and other traders, when he had shown himself so
much more considerate and humane than the great body of them.
He, however, counted over the money and signed the papers with
great good will, taking out a five-dollar gold piece for each of
the girls, as a parting present.
The affair took longer than they supposed, and the time
seemed an age to the poor girls, who were anxiously walking up
and down outside the room, in ignorance of their fate. Could
their father have brought the money? Why did he tremble so?
Could he have failed of the money, at last? Or could it be that
their dear mother was dead, for they had heard that she was
very ill!
At length a messenger came shouting to them, “You are free,
you are free!” Emily thinks she sprang nearly to the ceiling
overhead. They jumped, clapped their hands, laughed and
shouted aloud. Soon their father came to them, embraced them
tenderly, and attempted to quiet them, and told them to prepare
themselves to go and see their mother. This they did they
know not how, but with considerable help from the family, who
all seemed to rejoice in their joy. Their father procured a car-
riage to take them to the wharf, and, with joy overflowing all
bounds, they bade a most affectionate farewell to each member
of the family, not even omitting Bruin himself. The “good
that there is in human nature” for once had the upper hand,
and all were moved to tears of sympathetic joy. Their father,
with subdued tenderness, made great efforts to soothe their
tumultuous feelings, and at length partially succeeded. When
they arrived at Washington, a carriage was ready to take them
to their sister's house. People of every rank and description
came running together to get a sight of them. Their brothers
caught them up in their arms, and ran about with them, almost
frantic with joy. Their aged and venerated mother, raised up
from a sick-bed by the stimulus of the glad news, was there,
weeping and giving thanks to God. Refreshments were pre-
pared in their sister's house for all who called, and amid greet-
ings and rejoicings, tears and gladness, prayers and thanks-
givings, but without sleep, the night passed away, and the
morning of November 4, 1848, dawned upon them free and
happy.
This last spring, during the month of May, as the writer has
already intimated, the aged mother of the Edmondson family
came on to New York, and the reason of her coming may be
thus briefly explained. She had still one other daughter, the
guide and support of her feeble age, or, as she calls her, in her
own expressive language, “the last drop of blood in her heart.”
She had also a son, twenty-one years of age, still a slave on a
neighbouring plantation. The infirm woman in whose name the
estate was held was supposed to be drawing near to death, and
the poor parents were distressed with the fear that, in case of
this event, their two remaining children would be sold for the
purpose of dividing the estate, and thus thrown into the dreaded
Southern market. No one can realise what a constant horror
the slave-prisons and the slave-traders are to all the unfortunate
families in the vicinity. Everything for which other parents
look on their children with pleasure and pride is to these poor
souls a source of anxiety and dismay, because it renders the
child so much more a merchantable article.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the light in Paul and Milly's
cottage was overshadowed by this terrible idea.
The guardians of these children had given their father a
written promise to sell them to him for a certain sum, and
by hard begging he had acquired a hundred dollars towards the
twelve hundred which were necessary. But he was now confined
to his bed with sickness. After pouring out earne
st prayer to
the Helper of the helpless, Milly says, one day she said to Paul,
“I tell ye, Paul, I'm going up to New York myself, to see if I
can't get that money.”
“Paul says to me, `Why, Milly dear, how can you? Ye
an't fit to be off the bed, and ye's never in the cars in your
life.'
“Never you fear, Paul,' says I; `I shall go trusting in
the Lord; and the Lord, He'll take me, and He'll bring me,
that I know.'
“So I went to the cars and got a white man to put me
aboard; and, sure enough, there I found two Bethel minis-
ters; and one set one side o' me, and one set the other, all
the way; and they got me my tickets, and looked after my
things, and did everything for me. There didn't anything
happen to me all the way. Sometimes, when I went to set
down in the sitting-rooms, people looked at me and moved
off so scornful! Well, I thought, I wish the Lord would give
you a better mind.”
Emily and Mary, who had been at school in New York State,
came to the city to meet their mother, and they brought her
directly to the Rev. Henry W. Beecher's house, where the
writer then was.
The writer remembers now the scene when she first met this
mother and daughters. It must be recollected that they had
not seen each other before for four years. One was sitting each
side the mother, holding her hand; and the air of pride and
filial affection with which they presented her was touching to
behold. After being presented to the writer, she again sat
down between them, took a hand of each, and looked very
earnestly first on one and then on the other; and then looking
up, said, with a smile, “Oh, these children! how they do lie
round our hearts!”
She then explained to the writer all her sorrows and anxieties
for the younger children. “Now, madam,” she says, “that
man that keeps the great trading-house at Alexandria, that
man,” she said with a strong, indignant expression, “has sent
to know if there's any more of my children to be sold. That
man said he wanted to see me! Yes, ma'am, he said he'd give
twenty dollars to see me. I wouldn't see him if he'd give me
a hundred! He sent for me to come and see him when he
had my daughters in his prison. I wouldn't go to see him; I
Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin Page 55
