56. I mention this minute circumstance more particularly, because it forms one of the links to a chain of incidents which conducted to the development of some very important facts; such as I then had no conception or suspicion of the existence of, on this side the Atlantic ocean. I then supposed the instances of the streets of the city consecrated to freedom, being paraded with people led in captivity, were rare. But I soon ascertained that they were quite frequent, that several hundred people, including not legal slaves only, but many kidnapped freemen and youth bound to service for a term of years, and unlawfully sold as slaves for life, are annually collected at Washington (as if it were an emporium of slavery,) for transportation to the slave regions. The United States' jail is frequently occupied as a storehouse for the slave merchants, and some of the rooms in a tavern devoted chiefly to that use, are occasionally so crowded that the occupants hardly have sufficient space to extend themselves upon the floor to sleep.[18] [Illustration: Paragraphs 57. "... But I did not want to go, and I jump'd out of the window."] 57. A short time after having completed the memorandums above alluded to, the youth just mentioned, having learned the subject on which I had been occupied, and being prompt to communicate whatever he might meet with relative to it, informed me on returning from school, in the evening of the 19th December 1815, that a black woman, destined for transportation to Georgia with a coffle, which was about to start, attempted to escape, by jumping out of the window of the garret of a three story brick tavern in F. street, about day-break in the morning; and that in the fall she had her back and both arms broken! I remarked, that I did not wonder that she did so; and inquired, whether it had not killed her? To which he replied, that he understood that she was dead, and that the _Georgia-men_ had gone off with the others. The relation of this shocking disaster excited considerable agitation in my mind, and fully confirmed the sentiments which I had already adopted and recorded, of the multiplied horrors added to slavery, when its victims are bought and sold, frequently for distant destinations, with as much indifference as fourfooted beasts. Supposing this to have been a recent occurrence, and being desirous of seeing the mangled slave before she should be buried, I proceeded with some haste early on the following morning, in search of the house already mentioned. Calling at a house near the one at which the catastrophe occurred, I was informed, that it had been three weeks since it took place, and that the woman was still living. Having found the house, I desired permission of the landlord to see the wounded woman; to which he assented, and directed a lad to conduct me to her room, which was in the garret over the third story of the house. On entering the room I observed her lying upon a bed on the floor, and