Apprenticeship LifeNOTHING LOST BY THE ATTEMPT TO RUN AWAY--COMRADES IN THEIR OLDHOMES--REASONS FOR SENDING ME AWAY--RETURN TO BALTIMORE--CONTRASTBETWEEN TOMMY AND THAT OF HIS COLORED COMPANION--TRIALS INGARDINER'S SHIP YARD--DESPERATE FIGHT--ITS CAUSES--CONFLICTBETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK LABOR--DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTRAGE--COLORED TESTIMONY NOTHING--CONDUCT OF MASTER HUGH--SPIRIT OFSLAVERY IN BALTIMORE--MY CONDITION IMPROVES--NEW ASSOCIATIONS--SLAVEHOLDER'S RIGHT TO TAKE HIS WAGES--HOW TO MAKE A CONTENTEDSLAVE.
Well! dear reader, I am not, as you may have already inferred, a loser by the general upstir, described in the foregoing chapter.
The little domestic revolution, notwithstanding the sudden snub it got by the treachery of somebody--I dare not say or think who--did not, after all, end so disastrously, as when in the iron cage at Easton, I conceived it would. The prospect, from that point, did look about as dark as any that ever cast its gloom over the vision of the anxious, out-looking, human spirit. "All is well that ends well." My affectionate comrades, Henry and John Harris, are still with Mr. William Freeland. Charles Roberts and Henry Baily are safe at their homes. I have not, therefore, any thing to regret on their account. Their masters have mercifully forgiven them, probably on the ground suggested in the spirited little speech of Mrs. Freeland, made to me just before leaving for the jail--namely: that they had been allured into the wicked scheme of making their escape, by me; and that, but for me, they would never have dreamed of a thing so shocking!
My <236>friends had nothing to regret, either; for while they were watched more closely on account of what had happened, they were, doubtless, treated more kindly than before, and got new assurances that they would be legally emancipated, some day, provided their behavior should make them deserving, from that time forward. Not a blow, as I learned, was struck any one of them. As for Master William Freeland, good, unsuspecting soul, he did not believe that we were intending to run away at all.
Having given--as he thought--no occasion to his boys to leave him, he could not think it probable that they had entertained a design so grievous. This, however, was not the view taken of the matter by "Mas' Billy," as we used to call the soft spoken, but crafty and resolute Mr. William Hamilton. He had no doubt that the crime had been meditated; and regarding me as the instigator of it, he frankly told Master Thomas that he must remove me from that neighborhood, or he would shoot me down. He would not have one so dangerous as "Frederick" tampering with his slaves.
William Hamilton was not a man whose threat might be safely disregarded. I have no doubt that he would have proved as good as his word, had the warning given not been promptly taken. He was furious at the thought of such a piece of high-handed _theft_, as we were about to perpetrate the stealing of our own bodies and souls! The feasibility of the plan, too, could the first steps have been taken, was marvelously plain. Besides, this was a _new_ idea, this use of the bay. Slaves escaping, until now, had taken to the woods; they had never dreamed of profaning and abusing the waters of the noble Chesapeake, by making them the highway from slavery to freedom. Here was a broad road of destruction to slavery, which, before, had been looked upon as a wall of security by slaveholders. But Master Billy could not get Mr. Freeland to see matters precisely as he did; nor could he get Master Thomas so excited as he was himself.
The latter--I must say it to his credit--showed much humane feeling in his part of the transaction, and atoned for much that had been harsh, cruel <237 CHANGE IN LITTLE TOMMY>and unreasonable in his former treatment of me and others. His clemency was quite unusual and unlooked for. "Cousin Tom" told me that while I was in jail, Master Thomas was very unhappy; and that the night before his going up to release me, he had walked the floor nearly all night, evincing great distress; that very tempting offers had been made to him, by the Negro-traders, but he had rejected them all, saying that _money could not tempt him to sell me to the far south_. All this I can easily believe, for he seemed quite reluctant to send me away, at all. He told me that he only consented to do so, because of the very strong prejudice against me in the neighborhood, and that he feared for my safety if I remained there.
