He gave food, in abundance, and that,
too, of an excellent quality. In Mr. Hamilton's cook--Aunt
Mary--I found a most generous and considerate friend. She never
allowed me to go there without giving me bread enough <158>to
make good the deficiencies of a day or two. Master Thomas at
last resolved to endure my behavior no longer; he could neither
keep me, nor his horse, we liked so well to be at his father-in-
law's farm. I had now lived with him nearly nine months, and he
had given me a number of severe whippings, without any visible
improvement in my character, or my conduct; and now he was
resolved to put me out--as he said--"_to be broken."_
There was, in the Bay Side, very near the camp ground, where my
master got his religious impressions, a man named Edward Covey,
who enjoyed the execrated reputation, of being a first rate hand
at breaking young Negroes. This Covey was a poor man, a farm
renter; and this reputation (hateful as it was to the slaves and
to all good men) was, at the same time, of immense advantage to
him. It enabled him to get his farm tilled with very little
expense, compared with what it would have cost him without this
most extraordinary reputation.
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