sooner, indeed, does a vessel, known to be from the north, anchor in any
of these waters--and the slaves are pretty adroit in ascertaining from
what state a vessel comes--than she is boarded, if she remains any
length of time, and especially over night, by more or less of them, in
hopes of obtaining a passage in her to a land of freedom. During my
earlier voyagings, several years before, in Chesapeake Bay, I had turned
a deaf ear to all these requests. At that time, according to an idea
still common enough, I had regarded the negroes as only fit to be
slaves, and had not been inclined to pay much attention to the pitiful
tales which they told me of ill-treatment by their masters and
mistresses. But my views upon this subject had undergone a gradual
change. I knew it was asserted in the Declaration of Independence that
all men are born free and equal, and I had read in the Bible that God
had made of one flesh all the nations of the earth. I had found out, by
intercourse with the negroes, that they had the same desires, wishes and
hopes, as myself. I knew very well that I should not like to be a slave
even to the best of masters, and still less to such sort of masters as
the greater part of the slaves seemed to have. The idea of having first
one child and then another taken from me, as fast as they grew large
enough, and handed over to the slave-traders, to be carried I knew not
where, and sold, if they were girls, I knew not for what purposes, would
have been horrible enough; and, from instances which came to my notice,
I perceived that it was not less horrible and distressing to the parties
concerned in the case of black people than of white ones. I had never
read any abolition books, nor heard any abolition lectures. I had
frequented only Methodist meetings, and nothing was heard there about
slavery. But, for the life of me, I could not perceive why the golden
rule of doing to others as you would wish them to do to you did not
apply to this case. Had I been a slave myself,--and it is not a great
while since the Algerines used to make slaves of our sailors, white as