you will be when you get to be men. You will be free, you know,
as soon as you are twenty-one, and can go where you like, but I am a
slave for life. Have I not as good a right to be free as you have?"

Words like these, I observed, always troubled them; and I had no small
satisfaction in drawing out from them, as I occasionally did, that fresh
and bitter condemnation of slavery which ever springs from natures
unseared and unperverted. Of all consciences, let me have those to deal
with, which have not been seared and bewildered with the cares and
perplexities of life.

I do not remember ever to have met with a boy while I was in slavery,
who defended the system, but I do remember many times, when I was
consoled by them, and by them encouraged to hope that something would
yet occur by which I would be made free. Over and over again, they have
told me that "they believed I had as good a right to be free as they
had," and that "they did not believe God ever made any one to be a
slave."

On Monday, the third day of September, 1838, in accordance with my
resolution, I bade farewell to the city of Baltimore, and to slavery.

My success was due to address rather than courage; to good luck rather
than bravery. My means of escape were provided for me by the very men
who were making laws to hold and bind me more securely in slavery. It
was the custom in the State of Maryland to require of the free colored
people to have what were called free papers. This instrument they were
required to renew very often, and by charging a fee for this writing,
considerable sums from time to time were collected by the State. In
these papers the name, age, color, height, and form of the free man were
described, together with any scars or other marks upon his person.

Now more than one man could be found to answer the same general
description. Hence many slaves could escape by impersonating the owner
of one set of papers; and this was often done as follows: A slave nearly
or sufficiently answering the description set forth in the papers, would
borrow or hire them till he could by their means escape to a free state,
and then, by mail or otherwise, return them to the owner. The operation
was a hazardous one for the lender as well as the borrower.

A failure on the part of the fugitive to send back the papers would
imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the papers in possession of
the wrong man would imperil both the fugitive and his friend.