e you
acquainted with my intentions to leave.

You may perhaps want to know how I like my present condition. I am free
to say, I greatly prefer it to that which I occupied in Maryland. I
am, however, by no means prejudiced against the state as such. Its
geography, climate, fertility, and products, are such as to make it
a very{333} desirable abode for any man; and but for the existence of
slavery there, it is not impossible that I might again take up my abode
in that state. It is not that I love Maryland less, but freedom more.
You will be surprised to learn that people at the north labor under the
strange delusion that if the slaves were emancipated at the south,
they would flock to the north. So far from this being the case, in
that event, you would see many old and familiar faces back again to the
south. The fact is, there are few here who would not return to the south
in the event of emancipation. We want to live in the land of our birth,
and to lay our bones by the side of our fathers; and nothing short of an
intense love of personal freedom keeps us from the south. For the sake
of this, most of us would live on a crust of bread and a cup of cold
water.

Since I left you, I have had a rich experience. I have occupied stations
which I never dreamed of when a slave. Three out of the ten years since
I left you, I spent as a common laborer on the wharves of New Bedford,
Massachusetts. It was there I earned my first free dollar. It was mine.
I could spend it as I pleased. I could buy hams or herring with it,
without asking any odds of anybody. That was a precious dollar to me.
You remember when I used to make seven, or eight, or even nine dollars
a week in Baltimore, you would take every cent of it from me every
Saturday night, saying that I belonged to you, and my earnings also. I
never liked this conduct on your part--to say the best, I thought it a
little mean. I would not have served you so. But let that pass. I was a
little awkward about counting money in New England fashion when I first
landed in New Bedford. I came near betraying myself several times. I
caught myself saying phip, for fourpence; and at one time a man actually
charged me with being a runaway, whereupon I was silly enough to become
one by running away from him, for I was greatly afraid he might adopt
measures to get me again into slavery, a condition I then dreaded more
than death.

I soon learned, however, to count money, as well as to make it,