Page:Copley 1844 A History of Slavery and its Abolition 2nd Ed.djvu/184

166 ''wicked massa, he sell me children. Will no buckra massa pity poor nego? What me do? me have no child!" As she stood before my window, she said, lifting up her hands to heaven, "My massa, do my massa minister pity me! me heart do so, (shaking herself violently,) me heart do so because me have no child. Me go a massa house, in massa yard, and in me hut, but me no see um'';" and then her cry went up to God. I durst not (adds the missionary) be seen looking at her.

Another missionary relates the case of a husband and wife being sold into different islands, after having lived twenty-four years together, and reared a family of children.

A few years ago it was enacted that it should not be legal to transport once established slaves from one island to another. A gentleman resolving to do so before the act came in force, effected the removal of a great part of his live stock. He bad a female slave, highly valuable to him, not the less so for being the mother of eight or nine children; her husband was the property of another owner in the neighbourhood: both of them were pious persons. Their masters not agreeing on a sale, separation ensued. Their minister accompanied them to the beach to be an eye-witness of the parting scene. One by one the father kissed his children with the firmness of a hero, and blessing them, gave, as his last words, "Farewell, be honest and obedient to your master." At length he had to take leave of his wife, there he stood, five or six yards from the mother of his children, unable to speak, or move, or do any thing, but gaze, and still to gaze, on the object of his long affections, about to cross the blue wave for ever from his