politic to go shabbily dressed, and to appear to be very poor, but to pay
my mistress for my services promptly. I kept my money hid, never venturing
to put out a penny, nor to let any body but my wife know that I was making
any. The thousand dollars was what I supposed my mistress would ask for
me, and so I determined now what I would do.

I went to my mistress and inquired what was her price for me. She said a
thousand dollars. I then told her that I wanted to be free, and asked her
if she would sell me to be made free. She said she would; and accordingly
I arranged with her, and with the master of my wife, Mr. Smith, already
spoken of, for the latter to take my money[A] and buy of her my freedom,
as I could not legally purchase it, and as the laws forbid emancipation
except for "meritorious services." This done, Mr. Smith endeavored to
emancipate me formally, and to get my manumission recorded; I tried also;
but the court judged that I had done nothing "meritorious," and so I
remained, nominally only, the slave of Mr. Smith for a year; when, feeling
unsafe in that relation, I accompanied him to New York whither he was
going to purchase goods, and was there regularly and formally made a
freeman, and there my manumission was recorded. I returned to my family in
Raleigh and endeavored to do by them as a freeman should. I had known what
it was to be a slave, and I knew what it was to be free.

[Footnote A: _Legally_, my money belonged to my mistress; and she could
have taken it and refused to grant me my freedom. But she was a very kind
woman for a slave owner; and she would under the circumstances, scorn to
do such a thing. I have known of slaves, however, served in this way.]

But I am going too rapidly over my story. When the money was paid to my
mistress and the conveyance fairly made to Mr. Smith, I felt that I was
free. And a queer and a joyous feeling it is to one who has been a slave.