Ezekiel was so well satisfied with his present situation, that he told
his master he could not leave him. Their conversation on the subject
produced such feelings of tenderness that they _both wept much_.
Finally, as an inducement to comply, his master told him he might
remain on the farm, and they entered into a mutual engagement, which
was carried into effect, and Ezekiel continued to live on the farm
fourteen years, when his master gave him a piece of land, upon which he
built a house, where he remained until he came into the neighborhood
of Wilmington, where and in that town he has resided until the present
time.
After relating the foregoing narrative, he was inquired of respecting
the account entitled "The Good Master and his Faithful Slave"--a
circumstance which took place about the time of his being liberated,
and in the same family--to which he bore the following testimony,
shedding many tears while the reader was pursuing the theme, saying,
"It is just so, poor Jem and I lived together with master, and worked
together in harmony. How well I remember when Jem told me that Master
Mifflin had done the same by him as he had done for me.
"It is all true--mistress brought a number of slaves with her into the
family, after master married her--one of them was my wife--all the rest
of us, making, I suppose about thirty, were given by old master to
Master Warner, who is now an angel in heaven. Oh, how it comforts me
to believe that, after suffering a few more pains, I shall live with
him for ever in communion sweet! We were brought up children together,
slept together, eat at the same table, and never quarrelled."
The dear old man seems indeed like one waiting with Christian
resignation for an entrance into the heavenly kingdom. I have no doubt
of the correctness of his testimony. He appears to have as perfect
a recollection of the days of his childhood as though they had just
passed.
AN ANECDOTE,
Communicated to a Friend on the way from Charleston to Savannah by a
Fellow-Passenger.
A slave belonging to his grandmother was carried off when a boy by the
British, in the time of the revolutionary war, to Nova Scotia, where he
lived several years; but he did not forget his old home and friends,
and he returned to his mistress, giving himself up as a slave. But she,
not having employment for him, talked of selling him. He told her if
she did, he was determined to destroy himself, for that it was nothing
but his attachment to the family that brought him back. He was then
suffered to work out, paying a certain part of his wages to his owner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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