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Updated: June 1, 2025
Helm's plantation looked upon this removal as the greatest hardship they had ever met; the severest trial they had ever endured; and the separation from our old home and fellow-slaves, from our relatives and the old State of Virginia, was to us a contemplation of sorrowful interest.
After dinner Judge Pryor rode with us some distance, and put us in charge of a guide, who conducted us that night to Major Helm's, near Shelbyville, where we remained during the day of the 2d, and were there joined by four of our command in citizen's dress. That night we passed through Taylorsville, and stopped on the morning of the 3d near Bardstown.
As soon as all hands are at their stations, the captain, who stands on the weather side of the quarter-deck, makes a sign to the man at the wheel to put it down, and calls out ``Helm's a lee'! ``Helm's a lee'! answers the mate on the forecastle, and the head sheets are let go. ``Raise tacks and sheets! says the captain; ``tacks and sheets! is passed forward, and the fore tack and main sheet are let go.
"'An' the wind blows fair, an' our helm's a-lee, so it's heave, my mariners, all O!" cried the Imp in his nautical voice. "Dear me!" ejaculated Lady Warburton, staring. "Elizabeth, be so obliging as to tell me what it all means. Why have you dragged these children from their beds to come philandering upon a horrid river at such an hour?"
A few days after Helm's arrival, M. Roussillon returned to Vincennes, and if he was sorely touched in his amour propre by seeing his suddenly acquired military rank and title drop away, he did not let it be known to his fellow citizens.
Helm's, where I was treated much better than at Robinson's, and much, better than the Captain used to treat his slaves. Capt. Helm, not having demand for slave labor as much as formerly, was in the practice of hiring out his slaves to different persons, both in and out of the village; and among others, my only sister was hired out to a professed gentleman living in Bath.
Helm's eldest daughter, Jenny, was married to Mr. John Fitzhugh, her cousin, who had come from Virginia to claim his bride. The wedding was a splendid affair. No pains were spared to make it more imposing than any thing that had ever happened in that country. Never before had the quiet village of Bath seen such splendor.
However, De Croix most effectually hid my retirement by his rare good-humor and the sparkling badinage with which he concentrated all attention upon himself, and was consequently soon in the happiest of moods. I know not how the fellow succeeded in working the miracle, but he sat at the board, upon Mrs. Helm's left hand, powdered and curled as if he were gracing a banquet at the Tuileries.
"Helm's a-lee," responded the men, lifting the coiled-up braces and so on from the pins and throwing them down on the deck all ready for running.
Heald mounted upon a spirited bay horse a yard in their rear, followed close; and then to Lieutenant Helm's grave order the sturdy column of infantrymen, heavily equipped and marching in column of fours, swept in solemn curve about the post of the gate, and filed out through the narrow entrance. The regular tramp-tramp, the evident discipline, and the confident look of the men, impressed me.
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