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." [Footnote 131: MS. Memoirs.] 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. The experiences of St. Vincent de Paul did not differ from those of Abraham Brown. That eminent character, admired, beloved and worshipped by large circles of mankind, has also left a record of his sale as a slave.[132] "Their proceedings," he says, "at our sale 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, where they had come expressly to sell us. Having made us make 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 to 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 they do at the purchase of a horse or of cattle, making us open the mouth to see our teeth, feeling our sides, searching our wounds, and making us move our steps, trot and run, then lift burdens, and then wrestle, in order to see the strength of each, and a thousand other sorts of brutalities." [Footnote 132: _Biographie Universelle_, art. Vincent de Paul.]