EXTRAORDINARY EXERTIONS TO OBTAIN LIBERTY.
That human being who would run the gauntlet for freedom so desperately as the poor African appears to have done, whose story is given below, surely should never again be brought under the lash of a taskmaster. The captain of a vessel from North Carolina called upon the police for advisement respecting a slave he had unconsciously brought away in his vessel, under the following curious circumstances:
Three or four days after he had got to sea he began to be haunted every hour with tones of distress seemingly proceeding from a human voice in the very lowest part of the vessel. A particular scrutiny was finally instituted, and it was concluded that the creature, whatever or whoever it might be, must be confined down in the run under the cabin floor; and on boring a hole with an auger, and demanding, 'Who's there?' a feeble voice responded, 'Poor negro, massa!' It was clear enough then that some runaway negro had hid himself there before they sailed, trusting to Providence for his ultimate escape.
Having discovered him, however, it was impossible to give him relief, for the captain had stowed even the cabin so completely full of cotton as but just to leave room for a small table for himself and the mate to eat on; and as for unloading at sea, that was pretty much out of the question. Accordingly, there he had to lie, stretched at full length, for the tedious interval of thirteen days, till the vessel arrived in port and unloaded, receiving his food and drink through the auger hole.
The fellow's story is, now he is released, that, being determined to get away from slavery, he supplied himself with eggs, and biscuit, and some jugs of water, which latter he was just on the point of depositing in his lurking-place, when he discovered the captain at a distance coming on board, and had to hurry down as fast as possible and leave them; that he lived on nothing but his eggs and biscuit till discovered by the captain, not even getting a drop of water, except what he had the good fortune to catch in his hand one day, when a vessel of water in the cabin was overset, during a squall, and some of it ran down through the cracks of the floor over him.
WILLIAM BOWEN.
Died, near Mount Holly, New Jersey, 12th of sixth month, 1824, in the 90th year of his age, William Bowen, a man of color. The deceased was one of those who have demonstrated the truth of that portion of Scripture that, "in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him."
He was concerned in early life to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with his God; and by closely attending to the light of Christ, and faithfully abiding under the operation of that blessed spirit of Divine Grace in his soul, he was enabled not only to bear many precious testimonies, through his life, but to bring forth those fruits of the Spirit which redound to the glory of God and to the salvation of the soul.
He was an exemplary member of the religious Society of Friends. As he lived so he died, a rare pattern of a self-denying follower of Jesus Christ. He had no apparent disease either of body or mind; and as he expressed himself, but a short time before his death, "he felt nothing but weakness," which continued to increase until he gently breathed his last, and no doubt entered into his Heavenly Father's rest. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."