For this piece of service the captain demanded of us six thousand
weight of tabacco, which he said he was accountable for to his
freighter, and which we immediately bought for him, and made him a
present of twenty guineas besides, with which he was abundantly
satisfied.
It is not proper to enter here into the particulars of what part of the
colony of Virginia we settled in, for divers reasons; it may suffice to
mention that we went into the great river Potomac, the ship being bound
thither; and there we intended to have settled first, though afterwards
we altered our minds.
The first thing I did of moment after having gotten all our goods on
shore, and placed them in a storehouse, or warehouse, which, with a
lodging, we hired at the small place or village where we landed--I say,
the first thing was to inquire after my mother, and after my brother
(that fatal person whom I married as a husband, as I have related at
large). A little inquiry furnished me with information that Mrs. ----,
that is, my mother, was dead; that my brother (or husband) was alive,
which I confess I was not very glad to hear; but which was worse, I
found he was removed from the plantation where he lived formerly, and
where I lived with him, and lived with one of his sons in a plantation
just by the place where we landed, and where we had hired a warehouse.
I was a little surprised at first, but as I ventured to satisfy myself
that he could not know me, I was not only perfectly easy, but had a
great mind to see him, if it was possible to so do without his seeing
me. In order to that I found out by inquiry the plantation where he
lived, and with a woman of that place whom I got to help me, like what
we call a chairwoman, I rambled about towards the place as if I had
only a mind to see the country and look about me. At last I came so
near that I saw the dwellinghouse. I asked the woman whose plantation
that was; she said it belonged to such a man, and looking out a little
to our right hands, 'there,' says she, is the gentleman that owns the
plantation, and his father with him.' 'What are their Christian
names?' said I. 'I know not,' says she, 'what the old gentleman's name
is, but the son's name is Humphrey; and I believe,' says she, 'the
father's is so too.' You may guess, if you can, what a confused
mixture of joy and fight possessed my thoughts upon this occasion, for
I immediately knew that this was nobody else but my own son, by that
father she showed me, who was my own brother. I had no mask, but I
ruffled my hood so about my face, that I depended upon it that after
above twenty years' absence, and withal not expecting anything of me in
that part of the world, he would not be able to know anything of me.
But I need not have used all that caution, for the old gentleman was
grown dim-sighted by some distemper which had fallen upon his eyes, and
could but just see well enough to walk about, and not run against a
tree or into a ditch. The woman that was with me had told me that by a
mere accident, knowing nothing of what importance it was to me. As
they drew near to us, I said, 'Does he know you, Mrs. Owen?' (so they
called the woman). 'Yes,' said she, 'if he hears me speak, he will
know me; but he can't see well enough to know me or anybody else'; and
so she told me the story of his sight, as I have related. This made me
secure, and so I threw open my hoods again, and let them pass by me.
It was a wretched thing for a mother thus to see her own son, a
handsome, comely young gentleman in flourishing circumstances, and
durst not make herself known to him, and durst not take any notice of
him. Let any mother of children that reads this consider it, and but
think with what anguish of mind I restrained myself; what yearnings of
soul I had in me to embrace him, and weep over him; and how I thought
all my entrails turned within me, that my very bowels moved, and I knew
not what to do, as I now know not how to express those agonies! When
he went from me I stood gazing and trembling, and looking after him as
long as I could see him; then sitting down to rest me, but turned from
her, and lying on my face, wept, and kissed the ground that he had set
his foot on.