for a time. And I made bold to ask in what district were those who had
dealings with the colonies. He scanned me with a puzzling look of
commiseration.

"Ye're not a-going to sell yereself for seven year, my lad?" said he.
"I was near that myself when I was young, and I thank God' to this day
that I talked first to an honest man, even as you are doing. They'll
give ye a pretty tale,--the factors,--of a land of milk and honey, when
it's naught but stripes and curses yell get."

And he was about to rebuke me hotly, when I told him I had come from
Maryland, where I was born.

"Why, ye speak like a gentleman!" he exclaimed. "I was informed that
all talk like naygurs over there. And is it not so of your
redemptioners?"

I said that depended upon the master they got.

"Then I take it ye are looking for the lawyers, who mostly represent the
planters. And y e'll find them at the Temple or Lincoln's Inn."

I replied that he I sought was not an attorney, but a man of business.
Whereupon he said that I should find all those in a batch about the North
and South American Coffee House, in Threadneedle Street. And he pointed
me into the Strand, adding that I had but to follow my nose to St.
Paul's, and there inquire.

I would I might give you some notion of the great artery of London in
those days, for it has changed much since I went down it that heavy