Page:Black Jacob, a monument of grace.djvu/15

Rh moral influence, he had become confirmed on land in all the habits of vice contracted upon the sea. Notwithstanding all this ignorance, vice and degradation, there was in Jacob Hodges a native dignity and a noble carriage, which clearly illustrated traits of mind which cultivation and better circumstances of life would have developed to the honour of our common humanity. Though strikingly African, every feature and movement of Jacob showed that he was originally fitted for a higher and better character, and but for the disadvantages of his birth, and the utter neglect of his early education, he might have been a man indeed.

How long Jacob lived in the county of Orange is not known; but an uncommon and painful occurrence is connected with his history here, which changed the whole aspect of his subsequent life. In the town of Warwick, about seven miles from the village of Goshen, there resided a man by the name of Jennings,