My fellow apprentices very soon began to feel it to be degrading to work with me.

They began to put on high looks, and to talk contemptuously and maliciously of _"the Niggers;"_ saying, that "they would take the country," that "they ought to be killed." Encouraged by the cowardly workmen, who, knowing me to be a slave, made no issue with Mr.Gardiner about my being there, these young men did their utmost to make it impossible for me to stay.

They seldom called me to do any thing, without coupling the call with a curse, and Edward North, the biggest in every thing, rascality included, ventured to strike me, whereupon I picked him up, and threw{242} him into the dock.

Whenever any of them struck me, I struck back again, regardless of consequences.

I could manage any of them _singly_, and, while I could keep them from combining, I succeeded very well.