I saw him enjoying the same sort of savage ferocious delight, that a
hungry wolf would discover in gorging upon the mangled vitals of the
unoffending lamb. Such is the effect which tyranny produces upon the noble
mind, that although I was of a tender delicate frame, and rather of a
timid nature, yet I soon became so inured to punishment, that I constantly
bore the most severe flogging without altering a muscle of my face,
notwithstanding I frequently received from ten to twenty lashes from the
recently made instrument of torture, which was composed of new _birch
twigs_, each stroke from which drew the blood; and it was no uncommon
thing, after I had left the room, to get some other boy to pick out the
spills which were left sticking in my lacerated flesh, some of them more
than half an inch long. Nay, at last it became so bad that one of the
washerwomen made a serious complaint to Mrs. Griffith, about the horrid
state of my linen. Mrs. Griffith's expostulations were in vain, although
they were made in the most urgent and pressing manner in my hearing.

I speak of myself here, but there were several other boys, who were
punished equally without justice and without mercy, as well as myself. To
recite particular acts of this sort would be as disgusting as they would
be tedious and uninteresting. But there was a nice lad, of the name of
George Blandford, that he had literally flogged into a _hardened
dunce_--he had whipped every power of learning out of him, and then he
whipped him daily because he could not learn. At length his elder brother,
who slept in the same room with me, planned their escape from the school.
I went down stairs with them very early one morning, and having let them
out I locked the doors again, and returned to my bed, without being
detected. Griffith, however, called me up to his desk, and having charged
me with having assisted in their escape, I boldly admitted the fact,
rather than tell a lie; upon which I received a most severe flogging
before he set off to reclaim the fugitives. The Blandfords escaped all