Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass, a Slave | Page 5

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passage of the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace was at that time
made by ferry-boat, on board of which I met a young colored man by
the name of Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He was a
"hand" on the boat, but, instead of minding his business, he insisted
upon knowing me, and asking me dangerous questions as to where I
was going, when I was coming back, etc. I got away from my old and
inconvenient acquaintance as soon as I could decently do so, and went
to another part of the boat. Once across the river, I encountered a new
danger. Only a few days before, I had been at work on a revenue cutter,
in Mr. Price's ship-yard in Baltimore, under the care of Captain
McGowan. On the meeting at this point of the two trains, the one going
south stopped on the track just opposite to the one going north, and it
so happened that this Captain McGowan sat at a window where he
could see me very distinctly, and would certainly have recognized me
had he looked at me but for a second. Fortunately, in the hurry of the
moment, he did not see me; and the trains soon passed each other on
their respective ways. But this was not my only hair- breadth escape. A
German blacksmith whom I knew well was on the train with me, and
looked at me very intently, as if he thought he had seen me somewhere
before in his travels. I really believe he knew me, but had no heart to
betray me. At any rate, he saw me escaping and held his peace.
The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was
Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steam-boat for
Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended arrest, but
no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful
Delaware, speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia
in the afternoon, I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New
York. He directed me to the William-street depot, and thither I went,
taking the train that night. I reached New York Tuesday morning,
having completed the journey in less than twenty-four hours.
My free life began on the third of September, 1838. On the morning of
the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe
journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a FREE MAN--

one more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of
the troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway.
Though dazzled with the wonders which met me on every hand, my
thoughts could not be much withdrawn from my strange situation. For
the moment, the dreams of my youth and the hopes of my manhood
were completely fulfilled. The bonds that had held me to "old master"
were broken. No man now had a right to call me his slave or assert
mastery over me. I was in the rough and tumble of an outdoor world, to
take my chance with the rest of its busy number. I have often been
asked how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. There is
scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a
more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is
more than breath and the "quick round of blood," I lived more in that
one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous
excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a
friend soon after reaching New York, I said: "I felt as one might feel
upon escape from a den of hungry lions." Anguish and grief, like
darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the
rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil. During ten or fifteen years I
had been, as it were, dragging a heavy chain which no strength of mine
could break; I was not only a slave, but a slave for life. I might become
a husband, a father, an aged man, but through all, from birth to death,
from the cradle to the grave, I had felt myself doomed. All efforts I had
previously made to secure my freedom had not only failed, but had
seemed only to rivet my fetters the more firmly, and to render my
escape more difficult. Baffled, entangled, and discouraged, I had at
times asked myself the question, May not my condition after all be
God's work, and ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, Is not
submission my duty?