highway robbery. But Captain Hart was a _white gentleman_, and I a
_poor African,_ and therefore it was _all right, and good enough for
the black dog._

I am now sixty nine years old. Though once straight and tall,
measuring without shoes six feet one inch and an half, and every way
well proportioned, I am now bowed down with age and hardship. My
strength which was once equal if not superior to any man whom I have
ever seen, is now enfeebled so that life is a burden, and it is with
fatigue that I can walk a couple of miles, stooping over my staff.
Other griefs are still behind; on account of which some aged people,
at least, will pity me. My eye-sight has gradually failed, till I am
almost blind, and whenever I go abroad one of my grand-children must
direct my way; besides for many years I have been much pained and
troubled with an ulcer on one of my legs. But amidst all my griefs and
pains, I have many consolations; Meg, the wife of my youth, whom I
married for love, and bought with my money, is still alive. My
freedom is a privilege which nothing else can equal. Notwithstanding
all the losses I have suffered by fire, by the injustice of knaves, by
the cruelty and oppression of false-hearted friends, and the perfidy
of my own countrymen whom I have assisted and redeemed from bondage, I
am no possessed of more than two hundred acres of land, and three
habitable dwelling houses. I gives me joy to think that I _have_ and
that I _deserve_ so good a character, especially for _truth_ and
_integrity._ While I am now looking to the grave as my home, my joy
for this world would be full--IF my children, Cuff for whom I paid two
hundred dollars when a boy, and Solomon who was born soon after I
purchased his mother--If Cuff and Solomon--O! that they had walked the
way of their father. But a father's lips are closed in silence and
grief! Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!