y, and lacked two dollars toward paying
our fare from Newport, and our baggage not very costly--was taken by the
stage driver, and held until I could raise the money to redeem it. This
difficulty was soon surmounted. Mr. Nathan Johnson, to whom we had a
line from Mr. Ruggles, not only received us kindly and hospitably, but,
on being informed about our baggage, promptly loaned me two dollars with
which to redeem my little property. I shall ever be deeply grateful,
both to Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson, for the lively interest they were
pleased to take in me, in this hour of my extremest need. They not only
gave myself and wife bread and shelter, but taught us how to begin
to secure those benefits for ourselves. Long may they live, and may
blessings attend them in this life and in that which is to come!

Once initiated into the new life of freedom, and assured by Mr. Johnson
that New Bedford was a safe place, the comparatively unimportant matter,
as to what should be my name, came up for considertion(sic). It was
necessary to have a name in my new relations. The name given me by
my beloved mother was no less pretentious than "Frederick Augustus
Washington Bailey." I had, however, before leaving Maryland, dispensed
with the _Augustus Washington_, and retained the name _Frederick
Bailey_. Between Baltimore and New Bedford, however, I had several
different names, the better to avoid being overhauled by the hunters,
which I had good reason to believe would be put on my track. Among
honest men an honest man may well be content with one name, and
to acknowledge it at all times and in all{267} places; but toward
fugitives, Americans are not honest. When I arrived at New Bedford, my
name was Johnson; and finding that the Johnson family in New Bedford
were already quite numerous--sufficiently so to produce some confusion
in attempts to distinguish one from another--there was the more reason
for making another change in my name. In fact, "Johnson" had been
assumed by nearly every slave who had arrived in New Bedford from
Maryland, and this, much to the annoyance of the original "Johnsons"
(of whom there were many) in that place. Mine host, unwilling to have
another of his own name added to the community in this unauthorized way,
after I spent a night and a day at his house, gave me my present name.
He had been reading the "Lady of the Lake," and was pleased to regard me
as a suitable person to wear this, one of Scotland's many famous