I think it was about ten years I had worked in the salt ponds at Turk's
Island, when my master left off business, and retired to a house he had in
Bermuda, leaving his son to succeed him in the island. He took me with him
to wait upon his daughters; and I was joyful, for I was sick, sick of
Turk's Island, and my heart yearned to see my native place again, my
mother, and my kindred.

I had seen my poor mother during the time I was a slave in Turk's Island.
One Sunday morning I was on the beach with some of the slaves, and we saw
a sloop come in loaded with slaves to work in the salt water. We got a
boat and went aboard. When I came upon the deck I asked the black people,
"Is there any one here for me?" "Yes," they said, "your mother." I thought
they said this in jest--I could scarcely believe them for joy; but when I
saw my poor mammy my joy was turned to sorrow, for she had gone from her
senses. "Mammy," I said, "is this you?" She did not know me. "Mammy," I
said, "what's the matter?" She began to talk foolishly, and said that she
had been under the vessel's bottom. They had been overtaken by a violent
storm at sea. My poor mother had never been on the sea before, and she was
so ill, that she lost her senses, and it was long before she came quite to
herself again. She had a sweet child with her--a little sister I had never
seen, about four years of age, called Rebecca. I took her on shore with
me, for I felt I should love her directly; and I kept her with me a week.
Poor little thing! her's has been a sad life, and continues so to this
day. My mother worked for some years on the island, but was taken back to
Bermuda some time before my master carried me again thither.[7]

[Footnote 7: Of the subsequent lot of her relatives she can tell but
little. She says, her father died while she and her mother were at Turk's
Island; and that he had been long dead and buried before any of his