"Shall tongues be mute when deeds are wrought
Which well might shame extremest Hell?
Shall freemen lack the indignant thought?
Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell?
Shall Honor bleed?-shall Truth succumb ?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?" - Whittier.
WILLIAM WELLS BROWN, the subject of this narrative, was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky, not far from the residence of the late Hon. Henry Clay. His mother was the slave of Dr. John Young. His father was a slaveholder, and, besides being a near relation of his master, was connected with the Wickliffe family, one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most aristocratic of the Kentucky planters. Dr. Young was the owner of forty or fifty slaves, whose chief employment was in cultivating tobacco, hemp, corn, and flax. The doctor removed from Lexington, when William was five or six years old, to the State of Missouri, and commenced farming in a beautiful and fertile valley, within a mile of the Missouri river.
Here the slaves were put to work under a harsh and cruel overseer, named Cook. A finer situation for a farm could not have been selected in the state. With climate favorable to agriculture, and soil rich, the products came