crowded into the close slave wagon, regardless of age or sex, like sheep
for the slaughter, to be carried they knew not whither; but, doubtless
to the dismal rice swamp of the South,--was to them an agony too great for
endurance. The adult portion of the miserable company determined at last
to go no farther with their heartless master, but to resist unto death if
need be, before they surrendered themselves to the galling chains they had
so recently broken, or writhed again under the torturing lash of the
slave-driver.

Harry Lucas and wife, and Jane Cooper, silently prepared themselves for
the conflict, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible. When
they were nearly ready to start, Jane Cooper sent her oldest daughter and
younger sister, (she who is now our worthy friend Mrs. P. of Bath), into
the woods, and then when the men undertook to get Lucas and the two women
on board the boat the struggle commenced. The women fought the Captain and
his confederates like a lioness robbed of her whelps! They ran and dodged
about, making the woods ring with their screams and shouts of "Murder!
Murder! Help! Help! Murder!" until the Captain's party, seeing they could
do nothing to quell them, became so exceedingly alarmed lest they should
be detected in their illegal proceedings, that they ran off at full speed,
as if they thought an officer at their heels. In their hurry and fright
they caught two of Harry's children, and throwing them into the boat,
pushed off as quick as possible, amid the redoubled cries of the agonized
parents and sympathizing friends, all trying in every way possible, to
recover from the merciless grasp of the man-stealer, the two frightened
and screaming children. Guns were fired and horns sounded, but all to no
purpose--they held tightly the innocent victims of their cupidity, and
made good their escape.

Mr. D. C----, a gentleman of wealth and high standing in Steuben County,