The house was soon crowded from wall to wall, and then the street became blocked up with people as tightly as the lobby of a post-office for fifty yards. In the presence of this assembly I told the circumstances which led to the trial, and pointed the finger of scorn at the mean-looking lawyer, who, in my eyes, was a slander to the noble calling, and then I pointed to his worse than mean-looking accomplice, who was more than a burlesque upon the title gentleman. I gained my case over the pettifogger, but had the other sponging impostor to pay. I next had Sedgewick sworn, and made him tell whether or not he was to get, say about two dollars and a half, of the five Urton recovered off of me.

After the trial was over another man came up, and taking me aside, pointed to a block of buildings across the street, and said, "If you want a friend you shall have one, for all these belong to me." I thanked him for his extreme kindness, but at the same time had but little doubt in my own mind that if it had been dark, and the block of buildings had been thievable, they in reality would have all belonged to him before day. When I left the court I was well enough satisfied

in one particular: I had outcoped a man who was said to be the best lawyer in the Queen City. I should be really ashamed of even Tennessee pettifoggers, to say nothing of her splendid lawyers, were I to catch them acting as this pitiful thing did with me, for the small sum of two dollars and a half.

I now returned home, determined to give up my property for lost, and for ever; but a man, whose name was Roundtree, proposed that if I would give him one-third of the Tennessee value of the negroes, he would go and get them, and upon my agreeing to the proposition he went to Cincinnati, but returned without them, stating that he had seen the woman, but could not get her. Some considerable time after this a young lawyer, Woodfork, came from above Carthage, on purpose to see me, having heard the circumstances of my situation, and said he would deliver them to me for one-half of their value; I closed the bargain with him, and he started, and when he had been gone about three months, I received a line from him, stating that if I had been there he could have secured them. I heard no more from Woodfork; but Roundtree returned, and

offered me a set of blacksmiths' tools for the chance of the woman, which I accepted; and he went after her again, and after an absence of several weeks, came back with information for me, that he had succeeded in getting her, but had sold her; and this part of the scene closed, I never afterwards having heard of them.

But perhaps the worst is to come: I was still in debt for them, and they not here to assist me in making the money, for which my bonds were out. The chains which debt binds a man in, were to me intolerable. I yearned to be free; but to burst my fetters I knew would require a desperate struggle. I thought, however, that I would not yet despair; that I had gone through some very trying scenes, and could pass what now seemed to be the wreck of my fortunes, and, keeping each nerve up to its highest pitch, I resolved to pay, and restore my personal independence; but with all my efforts, no matter howsoever willingly they were made, the thought of being a victim to another man left me neither night nor day. I was not myself, I was the slave of him who held my bond. I labored with all the energy I was master of, but my debts fell

due faster than I could pay them. Despair often looked me in the face; but I turned aside, and struggled on. I perhaps would have failed at length, but I had a prop, of which every man cannot boast: my kind-hearted wife, unlike many women, who help the world to pull their husbands down, stood by and encouraged me. She advised me to cut, and clip, and sell off all we could spare, and accordingly I selected for sale every horse, cow, and sheep on the place; but she saw that this would not be sufficient to discharge the debts, and when I had added several other things, and all that I thought could be culled from our meagre stock of goods and chattels, I was upon the very verge of weeping, when upon looking round I saw her coming with her sifter in one hand, which scene I endeavored to tolerate, but could no longer restrain my tears when I saw in the other her bed-curtains, those too which she had embroidered with her own hand. The sheriff came and levied on the articles we had parcelled out; but on the day of sale, friends discovered themselves to us, by going round and telling the people that we were honest, and not to buy. The officer cried long and loud,

but could not get a single bid. He closed the sale, and as he was about to leave, I told him that if he would not sell upon the next day of sale, I would raise him five hundred dollars, and he agreed to it. The next day for selling came on, but he did not offer my property; my friends had not only promised, but handed me the five hundred dollars; and I paid it over, and he promised to wait as long as he could for the balance. I now started out, and took a round to collect that which I had previously sold property for, but failed. The sheriff returned, levied, and advertised to sell; but before the day of sale came round, Thomas Hamilton, an old friend from the Emerald Isle, took compassion on me, and voluntarily offered me three hundred dollars; and with that amount I freed myself from the sheriff; but the debt was yet standing out against me, so my wife and myself went to work, and after a good deal of tugging and toiling we paid our kind old Irish friend, and once again began the world anew; and perhaps if the prime of my life had not been gone, I had made a fortune. This shows how a man may be poor all his life by even a small accident in the outset, and I know