fearful risks in order to rid himself not only of the "load on
his back," but the load on his heart. By the very positive character of
William's testimony against slavery, the Committee felt more than ever
justified in encouraging the Underground Rail Road.

Henry Gorham was thirty-four years of age, a "prime," heavy, dark,
smart, "article," and a good carpenter. He admitted that he had never
felt the lash on his back, but, nevertheless, he had felt deeply on the
subject of slavery. For years the chief concern with him was as to how
he could safely reach a free State. Slavery he hated with a perfect
hatred. To die in the woods, live in a cave, or sacrifice himself in
some way, he was bound to do, rather than remain a slave. The more he
reflected over his condition the more determined he grew to seek his
freedom. Accordingly he left and went to the woods; there he prepared
himself a cave and resolved to live and die in it rather than return to
bondage. Before he found his way out of the prison-house eleven months
elapsed. His strong impulse for freedom, and intense aversion to
slavery, sustained him until he found an opportunity to escape by the
Underground Rail Road.

One of the tried Agents of the Underground Rail Road was alone cognizant
of his dwelling in the cave, and regarding him as a tolerably safe
passenger (having been so long secreted), secured him a passage on the
schooner, and thus he was fortunately relieved from his eleven months'
residence in his den. No rhetoric or fine scholarship was needed in his
case to make his story interesting. None but hearts of stone could have
listened without emotion.

Andrew, another fellow-passenger, was twenty-six years of age, and a
decidedly inviting-looking specimen of the peculiar institution. He
filled the situation of an engineer. He, with his wife and one child,
belonged to a small orphan girl, who lived at South End, Camden county,
N.C. His wife and child had to be left behind. While it seemed very hard
for a husband thus to leave his wife, every one that did so weakened
slavery and encouraged and strengthened anti-slavery.

Numbered with these four North Carolina passengers is found the name of
Wiley Maddison, a young man nineteen years of age, who escaped from
Petersburg on the cars as a white man. He was of promising appearance,
and found no difficulty whatever on the road. With the rest, however, he
concluded himself hardly safe this side of Cana