sought another opportunity to speak with Mr. Cruger, and at last found
him in his office alone; then he conversed freely on the subject of
Slavery, telling me that Capt. Helm could not hold me as a slave in that
State, if I chose to leave him, and then directed me to D. Comstock and J.
Moore; the first being at the head of a manumission society, and the last
named gentleman one of its directors.

Our condition, as I have said before, was greatly improved; and yet the
more we knew of freedom the more we desired it, and the less willing were
we to remain in bondage. The slaves that Capt. Helm had sold or hired out,
were continually leaving him and the country, for a place of freedom; and
I determined to become my own possessor.

There is no one, I care not how favorable his condition, who desires to be
a slave, to labor for nothing all his life for the benefit of others. I
have often heard fugitive slaves say, that it was not so much the cruel
beatings and floggings that they received which induced them to leave the
South, as the idea of dragging out a whole life of unrequited toil to
enrich their masters.

Everywhere that Slavery exists, it is nothing but _slavery_. I found it
just as hard to be beaten over the head with a piece of iron in New York
as it was in Virginia. Whips and chains are everywhere necessary to
degrade and brutalize the slave, in order to reduce him to that abject and
humble state which Slavery requires. Nor is the effect much less
disastrous on the man who holds supreme control over the soul and body of
his fellow beings. Such unlimited power, in almost every instance
transforms the man into a tyrant; the brother into a demon.

When the first of our persecuted race were brought to this country it was
to teach them to reverence the only true and living God; or such was the
answer of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England, when her subjects
desired the liberty to bring from their native land the poor, ignorant
African. "Let them," said the Queen, "be brought away only by their own
consent, otherwise the act will be detestable, and bring down the
vengeance of heaven upon us." A very different position truly, from the
one assumed at the present day by apologists for the traffic in human
flesh. But, to return to myself.

I had determined to make an effort to own myself, and as a preliminary
step, I obtained permission of Capt. Helm to visit some friends living in
Canandaigua and Geneva. This was in