from my old and inconvenient acquaintance as soon
as I could decently do so, and went to another part of the boat. Once
across the river, I encountered a new danger. Only a few days before, I
had been at work on a revenue cutter, in Mr. Price's ship-yard in
Baltimore, under the care of Captain McGowan. On the meeting at this
point of the two trains, the one going south stopped on the track just
opposite to the one going north, and it so happened that this Captain
McGowan sat at a window where he could see me very distinctly, and would
certainly have recognized me had he looked at me but for a second.
Fortunately, in the hurry of the moment, he did not see me; and the
trains soon passed each other on their respective ways. But this was not
my only hair-breadth escape. A German blacksmith whom I knew well was on
the train with me, and looked at me very intently, as if he thought he
had seen me somewhere before in his travels. I really believe he knew
me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate, he saw me escaping and
held his peace.

The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was
Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steam-boat for
Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended arrest, but
no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delaware,
speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia in the
afternoon, I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York.
He directed me to the William-street depot, and thither I went, taking
the train that night. I reached New York Tuesday morning, having
completed the journey in less than twenty-four hours.

My free life began on the third of September, 1838. On the morning of
the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe
journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a FREE MAN--one more
added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of the troubled
sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway. Though
dazzled with the wonders which met me on every hand, my thoughts could
not be much withdrawn from my strange situation. For the moment, the
dreams of my youth and the hopes of my manhood were completely fulfilled.
The bonds that had held me to "old master" were broken. No man now had a
right to call me his slave or assert mastery over me. I was in the rough
and tumble of an outdoor world, to take my chance with the rest of its
busy