a slave. They said I did not talk like a slave, look like a slave, nor
act like a slave, and that they believed I had never been south of
Mason and Dixon's line. "He don't tell us where he came from--what his
master's name was--how he got away--nor the story of his experience.
Besides, he is educated, and is, in this, a contradiction of all the
facts we have concerning the ignorance of the slaves." Thus, I was in
a pretty fair way to be denounced as an impostor. The committee of the
Massachusetts anti-slavery society knew all the facts in my case, and
agreed with me in the prudence of keeping them private. They, therefore,
never doubted my being a genuine fugitive; but going down the aisles
of the churches in which I spoke, and hearing the free spoken Yankees
saying, repeatedly, _"He's never been a slave, I'll warrant ye_," I
resolved to dispel all doubt, at no distant day, by such a revelation of
facts as could not be made by any other than a genuine fugitive.

In a little less than four years, therefore, after becoming a public
lecturer, I was induced to write out the leading facts connected with my
experience in slavery, giving names of persons, places, and dates--thus
putting it in the power of any who doubted, to ascertain the truth or
falsehood of my story of being a fugitive slave. This statement soon
became known in Maryland,{283} and I had reason to believe that an
effort would be made to recapture me.

It is not probable that any open attempt to secure me as a slave could
have succeeded, further than the obtainment, by my master, of the money
value of my bones and sinews. Fortunately for me, in the four years of
my labors in the abolition cause, I had gained many friends, who would
have suffered themselves to be taxed to almost any extent to save me
from slavery. It was felt that I had committed the double offense
of running away, and exposing the secrets and crimes of slavery
and slaveholders. There was a double motive for seeking my
reenslavement--avarice and vengeance; and while, as I have said, there
was little probability of successful recapture, if attempted openly,
I was constantly in danger of being spirited away, at a moment when my
friends could render me no assistance. In traveling about from place to
place--often alone I was much exposed to this sort of attack. Any
one cherishing the design to betray me, could easily do so, by simply
tracing my whereabouts through the anti-slavery journals, for m