PREFACE.


In preparing this little narrative, I have not sought to make a book,
but simply to tell my own experiences both in the slaveholding and
non-slaveholding States of America, in as few words as possible. The
facts here detailed throw light upon many phases of American life, and
add one more to the tens of thousands of illustrations of the terrible
power with which slavery has spread its influences into the Northern
States of the Union--penetrating even the inmost recesses of social
life.

W. G. A.

DONNYBROOK, DUBLIN,
_January, 1860._




A SHORT PERSONAL NARRATIVE.


I was born in Virginia, but not in slavery. The early years of my life
were spent partly in the small village of Urbanna, on the banks of the
Rappahannock, partly in the city of Norfolk, near the mouth of the
James' River, and partly in the fortress of Monroe, on the shores of the