I then
sustained returned to torment me. I felt assured that, if I failed in
this attempt, my case would be a hopeless one--it would seal my fate as
a slave forever. I could not hope to get off with any thing less than
the severest punishment, and being placed beyond the means of escape. It
required no very vivid imagination to depict the most frightful scenes
through which I should have to pass, in case I failed. The wretchedness
of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me.
It was life and death with me. But I remained firm, and, according to my
resolution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and
succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of any
kind. How I did so,--what means I adopted,--what direction I travelled,
and by what mode of conveyance,--I must leave unexplained, for the
reasons before mentioned.

I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a
free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any
satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever
experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to
feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a
pirate. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New
York, I said I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions. This
state of mind, however, very soon subsided; and I was again seized with
a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness. I was yet liable to be
taken back, and subjected to all the tortures of slavery. This in
itself was enough to damp the ardor of my enthusiasm. But the loneliness
overcame me. There I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect
stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands
of my own brethren--children of a common Father, and yet I dared not to
unfold to any one of them my sad condition. I was afraid to speak to any
one for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby falling into the
hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait
for the panting fugitive, as the ferocious beasts of the forest lie
in wait for their prey. The motto which I adopted when I started from
slavery was this--"Trust no man!" I saw in every white man an enemy, and
in almost every colored man cause for distrust. It was a most painful
situation; and, to understand it, one must needs experience it, or
imagine himself in simi