The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 34
CHAPTER XXXIV.
I walked on as fast as I was able, till after daylight, without meeting a single individual, or passing more than two or three mean and lonely houses. Just as the sun was rising, I gained the top of a considerable hill. Here there was a small house by the road side; and a horse saddled and bridled was tied to a tree near by. The animal was sleek, and in good condition; and from the cut of the saddle-bags I took him to belong to some doctor, who had come thus early to visit a patient. It was a tempting opportunity. I looked cautiously this way and that, and. seeing nobody, I unfastened the horse, and jumped into the saddle. I walked him a little distance, but presently put him into a gallop, that soon carried me out of sight of the house.;
This was a very lucky acquisition; for as I was upon the same road, which the travellers from whom I had escaped would follow, as soon as they resumed their journey, I was in manifest danger of being overtaken and recognized. As I found that my horse had both spirit and bottom, I put him to his speed, and went forward at a rapid rate. My good luck did not end here; for happening to put my hand into the pocket of my new coat, I drew out a pocket-book, which beside a parcel of musty papers, I found on examining it a little, to contain quite a pretty sum of money in bank notes. This discovery gave a new impulse to my spirits, which were high enough before; and I pushed on all day without stopping, except now and then to rest my horse in the shade of a tree.
Towards evening I got a supper, and corn for my horse, at a little hedge tavern; and waiting till the moon rose, I set out again. By morning, my horse was completely broken down, and gave out entirely. Thankful for his services thus far, — for according to my reckoning he had carried me upwards of a hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, — I stripped off his saddle and bridle, and turned him into a wheat-field to refresh himself. I now pursued my journey on foot; for I feared if I kept the horse, the possession of him might perhaps get me into difficulty; and in fact, he was so jaded and worn out, that he would be of very little use tome. I had got a good start upon the travellers, and I did not doubt that I could get on as fast upon foot, as they would on horseback.
Before sunset, I arrived at a considerable village. Here I indulged myself in a hearty meal, and a good night's sleep. Both were needed; for what with watching, fasting, and fatigue, I was quite worn out. I slept some ten hours, and awoke with new vigor. I now resumed my journey which I pursued without much fear of interruption; though I judged it prudent to stop but seldom, and to push forward as rapidly as possible. I kept on through North Carolina and Virginia; crossed the Potomac into Maryland; and avoiding Baltimore, I passed on into Pennsylvania, and congratulated myself that at last I trod a soil, cultivated by freemen.
I had gone but a very few miles, before I perceived the difference. In fact, I had scarcely passed the slave-holding border, before the change became apparent. The spring was just opening, and every thing was beginning to look fresh, green, and beautiful. The nicely cultivated fields, the numerous small enclosures, the neat and substantia. farm-houses, thickly scattered along the way, the pretty villages, and busy towns, the very roads themselves, which were covered with wagons and travellers, — all these signs of universal thrift and comfort, gave abundant evidence, that at length I saw a country where labor was honorable, and where every one labored for himself. It was an exhilarating and delightful prospect, and in strong contrast with all I had seen in the former part of my journey, in which a wretched and lonely road had led me on through a vast monotonous extent of unprofitable woods, deserted fields grown over with broomsedge and mullen, or fields just ready to be deserted, gullied, barren and with all the evidences upon them, of a negligent, unwilling, and unthrifty cultivation. Here and there, I had passed a mean and comfortless house; and once in fifty miles, a decaying, poverty-stricken village, with a court house, and a store or two, and a great crowd of idlers collected about a tavern door; but without one single sign of industry or improvement.
I was desirous of seeing Philadelphia; but that city, so near the slave-holding border, I feared might be infected with something of the slave-holding spirit; for the worst plagues are the most apt to be contagious, I passed by, without passing through it, and hastened on to New York. T crossed the noble Hudson, and.entered the town. It was the first city I had ever seen; at least, the first one worthy to be called a city; and when I beheld the spacious harbor crowded with shipping; the long lines of warehouses, the numerous streets, the splendid shops, and the swarming crowds of busy people, I was astonished and delighted with the new idea which all this gave me of the resources of human art and industry. I had heard of such things before, but to feel, one ought to see.
I did nothing for several days, but to wander up and down the streets, looking, gazing, and examining with an almost insatiable curiosity. New York then, was far inferior, to what it must by this time, have become; and the commercial restrictions which then prevailed must have tended to diminish its business and its bustle. Yet to my rustic inexperience, the city seemed almost interminable; and the rattling of the drays and carriages over the pavements, and the crowds of people in the streets, far exceeded all my previous notions of the busy confusion of a city.
I had now been in New York about a week, and was standing one forenoon by a triangular grass-plot, near the centre of the town, gazing at a fine building of white marble, which one of the passers-by told me was the City Hall, when suddenly I felt my arm rudely seized. I looked round, and with horror and dismay, I found myself in the gripe of general Carter, — the man who in South Carolina had called himself my master; but who, in a country that prided itself in the title of a 'free State', ought no longer to have had any claim upon me.
Let no one be deceived by the false and boastful title which the northern States of the American Union have thought fit to assume. With what justice can they pretend to call. themselves free States, after having made a bargain with the slave-holders, by, which they are bound to deliver back again, into the hands of their oppressors, every miserable fugitive who takes refuge within their territory? The good people of the free States have no slaves themselves. Oh no! Slave-holding they confess, is a horrible enormity. They hold no slaves themselves; they only act as bumbailiffs and tipstaves to the slaveholders!
My master, — for so even in the free city of New York 1 must continue to call him, — had seized me by one arm, and a friend of his held me by the other. He called me by name; and in the hurry and confusion of this sudden surprise, I forgot for a moment, how impolitic it was for me to appear to know him. A crowd began to collect about us. When they heard that I was seized as a fugitive slave, some of them appeared not a little outraged at the idea that a white man should be subject to such an indignity. They seemed to think that it was only the black, whom it was lawful to kidnap in that way. Such indeed is the untiring artfulness of tyranny that it is ever nestling even in the bosoms of the free; and there is not one prejudice, the offspring as all prejudices are, of ignorance and conceit, of which it has not well learned how to avail itself.
Though several of the crowd did not scruple to use very strong expressions, they made no attempt to rescue me; and I was dragged along towards that very City Hall which I had just been admiring. I was carried before the sitting magistrate; some questions were put and answered; some oaths were sworn, and papers written. I had not yet recovered from the first confusion of my seizure; and this array of courts and constables was a horrid sort of danger to which I was totally unaccustomed, so that I scarcely know what was said or done. But to the best of my recollection, the magistrate declined acting on the question; though he consented to grant a warrant for detaining me in prison, till I could be taken before some other tribunal.
The warrant was made out, and I was delivered over to an officer. The court-room was filled with the crowd, who had followed us from the street. They collected close about us, as we left the court-room; and I could see by the expression of their faces, and the words which some of them dropped, that they were very well inclined to favor my escape. At first, I seemed all submission to the officer; — we had gone however but a very few steps, when with a sudden spring I tore myself from his grasp, and darted among the crowd, which opened to give me a passage. I heard noise, confusion, and shouts behind me; but in a moment, I had cleared the enclosure in which the City Hall stood, and crossing one of the streets by which it was bounded, I dashed down a narrow and crooked lane. The people stared at me as I ran, and some shouted, "Stop thief!" One or two seemed half inclined to seize me; but I turned one short corner, and then another, and finding that I was not pursued, I soon dropped into a walk.
For this escape I return my thanks, not to the laws of New York, but to the good will of her citizens. The secret bias and selfish interest of the law-makers, often leads them wrong; the unprompted and disinterested impulses of the people, are almost always right. It is true that the artful practice and cunning instigation of the purchased friends and bribed advocates of oppression, joined to the interest which the thieves and pick-pockets of a great city always have in civil tumult and confusion, may now and then succeed in exciting the young, the ignorant, the thoughtless, and the depraved, to acts of violence in favor of tyranny. But so congenial to the human heart is the love of freedom, that it bums not brighter in the souls of sages and of heroes, than in the bosoms even of the most ignorant and thoughtless, when not quenched by some excited prejudice, base passion, or sinister influence.
In my previous wanderings about the town, I had discovered the road that led northwardly out of it; and I soon turned in that direction, determined to shake off from my feet, the very dust of a city, where I had been so near falling back again into the wretched condition of servitude.
I travelled all that day, — and at night, the inn-keeper, at whose house I lodged, told me that I was in the state of Connecticut. I now pursued my flight for several days, through a fine hilly and mountainous country, such as I had never seen before. The nobleness of the prospect, the craggy rocks, and rugged hills, contrasted finely with the excellent cultivation of the valleys, and the universal thrift and industry of the inhabitants. Where freedom nerves the arm, it is in vain that rocks and hills of granite, oppose the labors of the cultivator. Industrious liberty teaches him the art to extract comfort, competence, and wealth from a soil the most unwilling and ungrateful.
I knew that Boston was the great sea-port of New England; and thither I directed my steps, resolved to leave a land however otherwise inviting, whose laws would not acknowledge me a freeman. As I approached the town, the country lost much of its picturesque and hilly grandeur; but this was made up for by the greater beauty of its smoother and better cultivated fields; and by the pretty dwellings scattered so numerously along the road, that the environs of the town seemed almost a continued village. The city itself, seated on hills, and seen for a considerable distance, gave a noble termination to the prospect.
I crossed a broad river, by a long bridge, and soon entered the town; but I did not stop to examine it. Liberty was too precious to be sacrificed to the gratification of an idle curiosity; a New York mob had set me free; a Boston mob might perhaps delight in the opportunity of restoring me to servitude. I found my way, as soon as the crooked and irregular streets would allow me, to the wharves. — Many of the ships were stripped and rotting in the docks; but after some search and inquiry, I found a vessel about to sail for Bordeaux. I offered myself as a sailor. the captain questioned me, and laughed heartily at my land-lubberly air, and rustic ignorance; but finally he agreed to take me at half wages. He advanced me a month's pay; and the second mate who was a fine young fellow, and who seemed to feel for my lonely and helpless ignorance, assisted me in buying such clothes as would be necessary for the voyage.
In a few days, our cargo was completed, and the ship was ready for sea. We dropped off from the wharf; threaded our course among the numerous islets and headlands of Boston harbor; passed the castle and the lighthouse; sent off our pilot; and with all sail set, and-a smacking breeze, we left the town behind.
As I stood upon the forecastle, and looked towards the land, which soon seemed but a little streak in the horizon, and was fast sinking from our sight, I seemed to feel a heavy weight drop off me. The chains were gone. I felt myself a freeman; and as I watched the fast receding shore, my bosom heaved with a proud scorn, — a mingled feeling of safety and disdain.
"Farewell, my country!" — such were the thoughts that rose upon my mind, and pressed to find an utterance from my lips; — "And such a country! A land boasting to be the chosen seat of liberty and equal rights, yet holding such a portion of her people in hopeless, helpless, miserable bondage!"
"Farewell, my country! Much is the gratitude and thanks I owe thee! Land of the tyrant and the slave Farewell!"
"And welcome, welcome, ye bounding billows and any surges of the ocean! Ye are the emblems and the children of liberty — I hail ye as my brothers! — for, at last, I too am free! — free! — free!"