He was given his breakfast, and a
mulatto man was set to guard him. Now there was a pantry opening into
this room, and a negro girl, who appeared very friendly with the
mulatto, called him to eat his breakfast in this pantry. The mulatto,
while eating, would look out every few minutes. Just after one of
these inspections the boy got up softly, with his shoes in his hands,
stepped across the room, out at the back door, and concealed himself
in a patch of standing hemp. From thence he made his way into an
orchard, and out into a wood lot. Here he hid himself and remained
quiet for several hours, and although he heard several persons talking
near him, he was not pursued. At last he stole out, walked about six
miles, and at night fall entered a barn and slept there. He was in
rather better case than before his recapture, for a doctor belonging
to the British service had taken pity on him the night before, and had
furnished him with warm clothes, shoes, and a little money.
Next morning a woman who lived in a small house near the road gave him
some bread and milk. The time of the year was autumn, it was a day or
two before Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown. He now very fortunately
met an acquaintance named Captain Daniel Havens. He was an uncle of a
boy named John Sawyer, with whom young Hawkins had run away from New
York some years before.
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