e, were not so plentiful as now; and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I
had the advantage of being a _"brand new fact"_--the first one out. Up
to that time, a colored man was deemed a fool who confessed himself
a runaway slave, not only because of the danger to which he exposed
himself of being retaken, but because it was a confession of a very
_low_ origin! Some of my colored friends in New Bedford thought very
badly of my wisdom for thus exposing and degrading myself. The only
precaution I took, at the beginning, to prevent Master Thomas from
knowing where I was, and what I was about, was the withholding my former
name, my master's name, and the name of the state and county from which
I came. During the first three or four months, my speeches were almost
exclusively made up of narrations of my own personal experience as a
slave. "Let us have the facts," said the people. So also said Friend
George Foster, who always wished to pin me down to my simple
narrative. "Give us the facts," said Collins, "we will take care of the
philosophy." Just here arose some embarrassment. It was impossible for
me to repeat the same old story month after month, and to keep up my
interest in it. It was new to the people, it is true, but it was an old
story to me; and to go through with it night after night, was a task
altogether too mechanical for my nature. "Tell your story, Frederick,"
would whisper my then revered friend, William Lloyd Garrison, as I
stepped upon the platform. I could not always obey, for I was now
reading and thinking. New views of the subject were presented to my
mind. It did not entirely satisfy me to _narrate_ wrongs; I felt like
_denouncing_ them. I could not always curb my moral indignation{282}
for the perpetrators of slaveholding villainy, long enough for a
circumstantial statement of the facts which I felt almost everybody must
know. Besides, I was growing, and needed room. "People won't believe
you ever was a slave, Frederick, if you keep on this way," said Friend
Foster. "Be yourself," said Collins, "and tell your story." It was said
to me, "Better have a _little_ of the plantation manner of speech than
not; 'tis not best that you seem too learned." These excellent friends
were actuated by the best of motives, and were not altogether wrong in
their advice; and still I must speak just the word that seemed to _me_
the word to be spoken _by_ me.

At last the apprehended trouble came. People doubted if I had ever been