CHAPTER IV.
On the morning of the 8th of September, 1842, my mother sued Mr.D.D.
Mitchell for the possession of her child, Lucy Ann Berry.

My mother, accompanied by the sheriff, took me from my hiding-place and conveyed me to the jail, which was located on Sixth Street, between Chestnut and Market, where the Laclede Hotel now stands, and there met Mr.
Mitchell, with Mr.H.S.Cox, his brother-in-law.
Judge Bryant Mullanphy read the law to Mr.Mitchell, which stated that if Mr.Mitchell took me back to his house, he must give bond and security to the amount of two thousand dollars, and furthermore, I should not be taken out of the State of Missouri until I had a chance to prove my freedom.

Mr.H.S.Cox became his security and Mr.
Mitchell gave bond accordingly, and then demanded that I should be put in jail.
"Why do you want to put that poor young girl in jail ?" demanded my lawyer.

"Because," he retorted, "her mother or some of her crew might run her off, just to make me pay the two thousand dollars; and I would like to see her lawyer, or any other man, in jail, that would take up a d---- nigger case like that." "You need not think, Mr.Mitchell," calmly replied Mr.Murdock, "because my client is colored that she has no rights, and can be cheated out of her freedom.

She is just as free as you are, and the Court will so decide it, as you will see." However, I was put in a cell, under lock and key, and there remained for seventeen long and dreary months, listening to the "-- --foreign echoes from the street, Faint sounds of revel, traffic, conflict keen-- And, thinking that man's reiterated feet Have gone such ways since e'er the world has been, I wondered how each oft-used tone and glance Retains its might and old significance." My only crime was seeking for that freedom which was my birthright! I heard Mr.Mitchell tell his wife that he did not believe in slavery, yet, through his instrumentality, I was shut away from the sunlight, because he was determined to prove me a slave, and thus keep me in bondage.