I wandered the streets again. I walked by the side of the Mill Pond, which smelled of rotting weeds and fish, gulls clustering above it, screeching at the sea-winds, their cries punctuated by the detonation of artillery. I followed Hanover Street to Dock Square, musing upon strategems.

My plan for employ was simple, and was drawn from the lures of my former master, Mr. Sharpe, in his deceptions; as oft the trout may sup on the worm snatched away from the barbs of the hook dangled for his destruction.

Some weeks previous, Mr. Sharpe had told my friend Private G—g that I was in demand to play with the orchestra gathered for the diversion of the officers and the consolation of the besieged.

This position in the orchestra, but putative, conceived as a feint to draw me away from my fellows so that rogues might throw me in chains — this phantasm might now be conjured to solidity.

I stood before Faneuil Hall, observing the few men who passed in and out of its doors; all the while, my fancy painting the exhilaration of performance, the auditors delighted, the bows drawn in unison, the candles affixed to our music-stands, the ardent labor and delight of shaping melody, so much more grateful a work than the mounding up of fortifications and the crafting of ditch which had been my portion for so many months past.

I made a motion to enter the hall, but could not. My heart misgave; a sudden fear struck me. I hung back, and could in no wise continue.

I was a refugee, without instrument; I had not so much as touched a fiddle for weeks — and for months before that, had not played a violin worth the name — not since the dances at the Pox Party, now awful to recall. I was a Negro, a mere boy, a cricket with only youth and greenness to recommend me, demanding to be heard by gentlemen and ladies of the first quality. And I could already hear the sneers at my poor scrapings, the scorn at my childish vanity.

There was no employment I longed for so much as to play in a band of music — such was my thought; but the spirit accustomed to disparagement and humiliation, weaned upon castigation and contumely, relucts to believe itself capable of attainment — and relucts so in proportion to how much its aims are desired. The inward person doth shrink and hesitate before the daunting inception of active deeds, wishing that some discouraging voice should intervene and forbid, so that no hazard might be made.

Those accustomed to failure fear the novelty of success. Those taught the lessons of subordination are oft timid in the school of self-service. And those freed from a habit of bondage — bondage of the chain or the spirit — may feel as a man deposited in caverns without benefit of lantern and told he may range infinitely where he will: The word of his great latitude for motion is little consolation, when he might at any moment strike his head upon a ceiling he did not know dropped so low, or be precipitated into pits, and breathe his last broken on some umbrageous declivity.

So I did not allow myself to believe that I might offer my services where most I wished, but rather sought out other employment.

I turned from Faneuil Hall. With heavy heart, I made my way along the quays to inquire after positions. For several hours, I presented myself in shops, but none required help. The privates of the Army were in such desperate circumstances, their pay being so meager, that they worked at other trades than killing and dying to supplement their income. The city was glutted with them, and they looked upon a Negro who might labor for even less pay with jealousy and suspicion.

The gristmills were locked. Many docks were empty of ships. The smithies were out of blast.

At each disappointment, my spirits rose.

Had my route been witnessed by another, he might have noted that my inquiries wound their way back toward Faneuil Hall.

I repaired to the market to see if any might have need of someone who could tell sums and lift. A gloom had settled over the place, and the haggling was mercenary, sharp-tongued, and often shouted. There being few provisions for sale, the bustle of commerce had given way to the scurried agitations of scarcity and the angry chafferings of need.

I inquired of fishmongers, bakers, the officials who weighed the bread.

None required assistance.

Now, standing in the marketplace, engulfed in that invested town, that hive of my former masters’ enemies, my eyes fell again upon Faneuil Hall. With relief, I recognized that I had escaped other employment only narrowly. Did I continue my pretense of seeking work elsewhere, I was in great danger that I might find it, cruelly disappointed by success; and I knew that my gifts, such as they were, might not be of inconsiderable interest to whatever impresario now organized these symphonies and dances.

I knocked upon the doors and was admitted; having made inquiries, I was told that Mr. William Turner, the music-master, was in the hall demonstrating fencing to young officers; but that if I could return within an hour, he should hear me out.

I returned at the time specified, and found him to be engaged still in lunging. A few of the officers dawdled after their lesson, enjoying Mr. Turner’s foining and the free exchange of youthful braggadocio.

Waiting until they were gone, I was eventually greeted by Mr. Turner, to whom I humbly submitted that I hoped my small talents might prove useful to him, adding, with much stammering, that when I had played in Concert Hall a few years previous, my efforts had not been found unworthy of applause. He having heard my entreaty, Mr. Turner barely spake to me, but asked me to play him something upon my violin. When I owned that I did not have a violin, he looked at me with impatience, informing me that there were two articles very necessary to be a Negro violinist: to whit, pigment and a violin; and that without the latter article, I was not avowedly a Negro violinist, but a Negro, of which he had no definite want. I begged that if he might grant me an instrument and three minutes’ audition, I hoped that he would not find his time poorly used. He left the room, where I stood anxiously for some moments, discomfited by our interview, gazing at the ranks of empty seats.

He returned with a violin, poorly tuned. I quickly adjusted it as he observed. I inquired what he wished me to play, indicating that I knew by heart sonatas by Corelli, Tartini, Locatelli, and such other venerable Italian masters as were most highly esteemed.

He requested I play “Poor Polly Is a Sad Slut.”

Flustered, disheartened, I said I did not know the tune. He hummed it once for me. I played it back for him; I elaborated upon its melody as a fiddler would — exercising what I had learned of this art when playing tunes for the dances at the Pox Party — and played divisions upon the song — and, now warming after weeks without the welcome cordial of bow and strings, I introduced with a flourish my favorite among the Corelli sonatas — bursting into that beloved piece, so familiar to me and so gratifying an object to my senses — I then catching fire and playing with joy — motivated no longer by the dictates of necessity and the eye of censure, but rather by delight in my new freedom, bow skipping with the pleasant prospect of paid employ and new-found utility.

I came to a close, awakened abruptly to the shame of my display. I awaited his judgment.

As it transpired, this demonstration was, I believe, not distasteful to Mr. Turner; except insofar as its excesses suggested an overweening vanity, it made no unpleasant effect upon that versatile and incisive individual, and he agreed to let me play in the orchestra, providing that I could rein in my over-exuberant fantasy and unseemly pride.

Though chastened, I felt every nerve thrill to have braved scorn and demonstrated my worth.

Thus I was employed. He inquired as to my name; I did not know what to reply. I cast about.

“It is lovely,” said he, “when a Negro has time in the day to deliberate even about what he is called. Perhaps, sir, you are newly at leisure?”

’Twas imperative I answer. My head thronged with names; but chief among them, my own. Thinking then of Cæsar Augustus, called Octavian until his majority, I replied that I was named Augustus.

“Augustus. Well chosen,” said Mr. Turner. “It has an imperial ring.” He instructed me to return the next day for our rehearsal and exhorted me to find clothes better suited to playing before the premier citizens in the Colony. I allowed that I had no money with which to purchase clothing. He informed me that though he wished ardently that he could help me, he was an impresario, not a Benevolent Society for Africo-Italian Virtuosi in Reduced Circumstances, and that I should “scuttle off” and steal myself some handsomer breeches.

As it transpired, this was precisely what I did.