I therefore soon determined to intrust the undertaking to John Needles, of Baltimore, a most excellent man and member of the Society of Friends. Accordingly, I wrote to him, giving all the particulars of the case,--the name of the town in Virginia where the slave-woman was supposed to be still living, usually called Aunt Bess or Old Bess, and the name of the planter who held her as his chattel. I promised to send him the three hundred dollars which Sanford had put at my disposal, and more, if more would be needed, so soon as he should inform me that he had gotten or could get possession of the woman. After six or eight weeks I received a letter, informing me that he had secured the ready assistance of a very suitable man,--a Quaker, residing in the town of W----, not far from the plantation on which was still living the mother of Sanford, an old woman in pretty good health. But alas! his endeavor to purchase her had been utterly unavailing. He had approached the business as warily as he knew how to. Yet almost instantly the truth had been seen by the jealous eyes of the planter, through the disguise the Quaker had attempted to throw around it. “You don’t want that old black wench for yourself,” said the master. “She would be of no use to you. You want to get her for Sanford. And, damn him, he can’t have her, unless he comes for her himself. And then, I reckon, I shall let Old Bess have him, and not let him have her. He may stay here where he belongs, the damned runaway!” No entreaty or argument the Quaker used seemed to move the master. Even the offer of two hundred dollars and two hundred and fifty dollars--much more than the market value of the old woman--was spurned. It was better to him than money to punish the runaway slave through his disappointed affections, now that he could not do it by lacerating his back or putting him in irons. I need not attempt to describe the sorrow and vexation of the son thus wantonly denied the satisfaction of contributing to the comfort of his mother through the few last days of her life, in which her services could have been of little or no worth to the tyrant. Nor need I measure for my readers the vast _moral superiority_ of the poor black man, who had been the slave, to the rich white man, who had been the master. DISTINGUISHED COLORED MEN. I have given above some instances of exalted _moral_ excellence which greatly increased my regard for colored men,--instances of self-sacrificing benevolence, of rigid adherence to a promise under the strongest temptation to break it, and of their inestimable value of liberty. I wish now to tell of several colored men who have given us abundant evidences of their mental power and executive ability. DAVID RUGGLES, LEWIS HAYDEN, AND WILLIAM C. NELL.