I was just as well aware of the unjust, unnatural and murderous character of slavery, when nine years old, as I am now.

Without any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, it was enough to accept God as a father, to regard slavery as a crime.{105} I was not ten years old when I left Col.

Lloyd's plantation for Balitmore( sic).

I left that plantation with inexpressible joy.

I never shall forget the ecstacy with which I received the intelligence from my friend, Miss Lucretia, that my old master had determined to let me go to Baltimore to live with Mr.Hugh Auld, a brother to Mr.Thomas Auld, my old master's son-in-law.