What caught my attention in this passage was the effort that Mr. Wood is putting in not to grant Mary her freedom, on page 43, reason #6 “He alleges that she was before marriage, licentious, and even depraved in her conduct, unfaithful to her husband afterwards” Mary Prince, here is where  I am reading between the lines that  Mr. Wood was having sex with Mary, he was condemning her as being promiscuous and being someone of low moral character because he knew what he was doing with her behind closed doors, but his actions were contradicting all the negative he was portraying Mary to be.

Mary was the one that took full care of his house when he and his wife was out of the country, she was the one that took care of the duties in his house, she took care of his kids, and most important he had the opportunity to sell her on five occasions and refused, even when he got offers that were more than her value, he choose to sell other slaves because she was giving him more than face value for his money, she was his most valuable slave because of the intangibles she brought to him, she wasn’t licentious, she was in survival mode in my opinion.