prospects of some of my fellow slaves, was a rainbow over mine. My master
died, and his widow, by the will, became sole executrix of his property.
To the surprize of all, the bank of which he had been cashier presented a
claim against the estate for forty thousand dollars. By a compromise,
this sum was reduced to twenty thousand dollars; and my mistress, to meet
the amount, sold some of her slaves, and hired out others. I hired my time
of her,[A] for which I paid her a price varying from one hundred dollars
to one hundred and twenty dollars per year. This was a privilege which
comparatively few slaves at the South enjoy; and in this I felt truly
blessed.

[Footnote A: It is contrary to the laws of the State for a slave to have
command of his own time in this way, but in Raleigh it is sometimes winked
at. I knew one slave-man who was _doing well for himself_, taken up by the
public authorities and hired out for the public good, three times in
succession for this offence. The time of hiring in such a case is one
year. The master is subject to a fine. But generally, as I have said, if
the slave is orderly and appears to be _making nothing_, neither he nor
the master is interfered with.]

I commenced the manufacture of pipes and tobacco on an enlarged scale. I
opened a regular place of business, labelled my tobacco in a conspicuous
manner with the names of "_Edward and Lunsford Lane_," and of some of the
persons who sold it for me,--established agencies for the sale in various
parts of the State, one at Fayetteville, one at Salisbury, one at Chapel
Hill, and so on,--sold my articles from my place of business, and about
town, also deposited them in stores on commission, and thus, after paying
my mistress for my time, and rendering such support as necessary to my
family, I found in the space of some six or eight years, that I had
collected the sum of one thousand dollars. During this time I had found it