moving multitude of ships:--

"You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my
chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and
I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels,
that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I
were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your
protecting wing! Alas! betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go
on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O,
why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone;
she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending
slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any
God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught,
or get clear, I'll try it. I had as well die with ague as the fever.
I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die
standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am
free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall
live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet
bear me into freedom. The steamboats steered in a north-east course from
North Point. I will do the same; and when I get to the head of the bay,
I will turn my canoe adrift, and walk straight through Delaware into
Pennsylvania. When I get there, I shall not be required to have a pass;
I can travel without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity
offer, and, come what will, I am off. Meanwhile, I will try to bear up
under the yoke. I am not the only slave in the world. Why should I fret?
I can bear as much as any of them. Besides, I am but a boy, and all boys
are bound to some one. It may be that my misery in slavery will only
increase my happiness when I get free. There is a better day coming."

Thus I used to think, and thus I used to speak to myself; goaded almost