In 1830, being then about sixteen years of age, William was hired to a slave-dealer named Walker. This change of employment led the youth away south and frustrated, for a time, his plans for escape. His experience while in this capacity furnishes some interesting, though painful, details of the legalized traffic in human beings carried on in the United States. The desperation to which the slaves are driven at their forced separation from husband, wife, children, and kindred, he found to be a frequent cause of suicide. Slave-dealers he discovered were as great adepts at deception in the sale of their commodity as the most knowing down-easter, or tricky horse dealer. William's occupation on board the steamer, as they steamed south, was to prepare the stock for the market, by shaving off whiskers and blacking the grey hairs with a colouring composition. At the expiration of the period of his hiring with Walker, William returned to his master rejoiced to have escaped an employment so repugnant to his feelings. But this joy was not of long duration. One of his sisters who, although sold to another master had been living in the same city with himself and mother, was again sold to be sent away south, never in all probability to meet her sorrowing relatives. Dr. Young also, wanting money, intimated to his young kinsman that he was about to sell him. This intimation determined William, in conjunction with his mother, to attempt their escape. For ten nights they travelled northwards, hiding themselves in the woods by day. The mother and son at length deemed themselves safe from re-capture, and, although weary and foot-sore, were laying down sanguine plans for the acquisition of a farm in Canada, the purchase of the freedom of the six other members of the family still in slavery, and rejoicing in the anticipated happiness of their free home in Canada. At that moment three men made up to and seized them, bound the son and led him, with his desponding mother, back to slavery. Elizabeth was sold and sent away south, while her son became the property of a merchant tailor named Willi. Mr. Brown's description of the final interview between himself and his mother, is one of the most touching portions of his narrative. The mother, after expressing her conviction of the speedy escape from slavery by the hand of death, enjoined her child to persevere in his endeavours to gain his freedom by flight. Her blessing was interrupted by the kick and curse bestowed by her dehumanized master upon her beloved son.