mmenced among us about this time, for
the holding of General Conventions, to devise ways and means for their
elevation, which continued with happy influence up to 1834, when we gave
way to anti-slavery friends, who had then taken up the labouring oar. And
well do I remember that the first time I ever saw those tried friends,
Garrison, Jocelyn, and Tappan, was in one of those Conventions, where they
came to make our acquaintance, and to secure our confidence in some of
their preliminary labours.

My particular mode of labour was still a subject of deep reflection; and
from time to time I carried it to the Throne of Grace. Eventually my mind
fixed upon the ministry as the desire of my whole heart. I had mastered
the preliminary branches of English education, and was engaged in studying
logic, rhetoric, and the Greek Testament, without a master. While thus
struggling in my laudable work, an opening presented itself which was not
less surprising than gratifying. Walking on the street one day, I met a
friend, who said to me, "I have just had an application to supply a
teacher for a school, and I have recommended you." I said, "My dear
friend, I am obliged to you for the kindness; but I fear I cannot sustain
an examination for that station." "Oh," said he, "try." I said, "I will,"
and we separated. Two weeks afterwards, I met the trustees of the school,
was examined, accepted, and agreed with them for a salary of two hundred
dollars per annum; commenced my school, and succeeded. This was five
years, three months, and thirteen days after I came from the South.

As the events of my life since that have been of a public professional
nature, I will say no more about it. My object in writing this tract is
now completed. It has been to shew the reader the hand of God with a
slave; and to elicit your sympathy in behalf of the fugitive slave, by
shewing some of the untold dangers and hardships through which he has to
pass to gain liberty, and how much he needs friends on free soil; and that
men who have felt the yoke of slavery, even in its mildest form, cannot be
expected to speak of the system otherwise than in terms of the most
unqualified condemnation.

There is one sin that slavery committed against me, which I never can
forgive. It robbed me of my education; the injury is irreparable; I feel
the embarrassment more seriously now than I ever did before. It cost me
two years' hard labour, after I fled, to unshackle my mind; it wa