"As concerning myself, being brought to the market in the weakest condition of any of our men, I was led forth among the cruel multitude to be sold. As yet being undiscovered what I was, I was like to have been sold at a very low rate, not above fifteen pounds sterling, whereas our ordinary seamen were sold for thirty pounds and thirty-five pounds sterling, and two boys were sold for forty pounds apiece; and being in this sad posture led up and down at least one hour and an half, during which time a Dutchman, that was our carpenter, discovered me to some Jews, they increased from fifteen to seventy-five pounds, which was the price my patron gave for me, being three hundred ducats; and had I not been so weakened, and in these rags (indeed, I made myself more so than I was, for sometimes, as they led me, I pretended I could not go, and did often sit down),--I say, had not these things been, in all likelihood I had been sold for as much again in the market, and thus I had been dearer, and the difficulty greater to be redeemed. During the time of my being led up and down the market, I was possessed with the greatest fears, not knowing who my patron might be. I feared it might be one from the country, who would carry me where I could not return, or it might be one in and about Sallee, of which we had sad accounts, and many other distracting thoughts I had. And though I was like to have been sold unto the most cruel man in Sallee, there being but one piece-of-eight between him and my patron, yet the Lord was pleased to cause him to buy me, of whom I may speak, to the glory of God, as the kindest man in the place."[149] [149] Memoirs of Abraham Brown, MS. This is the story of a respectable person, little distinguished in the world. But the slave-dealer applied his inexorable system without distinction of persons. ST. VINCENT DE PAUL A SLAVE. The experience of St. Vincent de Paul did not differ from that of Abraham Brown. That illustrious character, admired, beloved, and worshipped by large circles of mankind, has also left a record of his sale as a slave. "Their proceedings at our sale," he says, "were as follows. After we had been stripped, they gave to each one of us a pair of drawers, a linen coat, with a cap, and paraded us through the city of Tunis, whither they had come expressly to sell us. Having made us take five or six turns through the city, with the chain at our necks, they conducted us back to the boat, that the merchants might come and see who could eat well and who not, and to show that our wounds were not mortal. This done, they took us to the public square, where the merchants came to visit us, precisely as is done at the purchase of a horse or an ox, making us open our mouths to see our teeth, feeling our sides, probing our wounds, and making us walk about, trot, and run, then lift burdens, and then wrestle, in order to see the strength of each, and a thousand other sorts of brutalities."[150]