good deal about giving me my freedom, as had been promised
before starting, etc. I let on to them that I had no wish to go North;
that Baltimore was as far North as I wished to see, and that I had
rather be going home than going North. I told them that I was tired of
this country. In speaking of coming North, they made mention of the
Alleghany mountains. I told them that I would like to see that, but
nothing more. They hated the North, and I made believe that I did too.
Mistress said, that if I behaved myself I could go with them to France,
when they went again, after they returned home--as they intended to go
again.

"So they decided to take me with them to Philadelphia, for a short
visit, before going into Virginia to buy up their drove of slaves for
Louisiana. My heart leaped for joy when I found we were going to a free
State; but I did not let my owners know my feelings.

"We reached Philadelphia and went to the Girard Hotel, and there I made
up my mind that they should go back without me. I saw a colored man who
talked with me, and told me about the Committee. He brought me to the
anti-slavery office," etc., etc., etc.

The Committee told Jim that he could go free immediately, without saying
a word to anybody, as the simple fact of his master's bringing him into
the State was sufficient to establish his freedom before the Courts. At
the same time the Committee assured him if he were willing to have his
master arrested and brought before one of the Judges of the city to show
cause why he held him a slave in Pennsylvania, contrary to the laws of
the State, that he should lack neither friends nor money to aid him in
the matter; and, moreover, his freedom would be publicly proclaimed.

Jim thought well of both ways, but preferred not to meet his
"kind-hearted" master and mistress in Court, as he was not quite sure
that he would have the courage to face them and stand by his charges.

This was not strange. Indeed not only slaves cowed before the eye of
slave-holders. Did not even Northern men, superior in education and
wealth, fear to say their souls were their own in the same presence?

Jim, therefore, concluded to throw himself upon the protection of the
Committee and take an Underground Rail Road ticket, and thereby spare
himself and his master and mistress the disagreeableness of meeting
under such strange circumstances. The Committee arranged matters for him
to the satisfaction of all concerned, and gave him a