Then, too, we knew that merely reaching a free state did not free us; that, wherever caught, we could be returned to slavery.

We could see no spot on this side the ocean, where we could be free.

We had heard of Canada, the real Canaan of the American bondmen, simply as a country to which the wild goose and the swan repaired at the end of winter, to escape the heat of summer, but not as the home of man.

I knew something of theology, but nothing of geography.

I really did not, at that time, know that there was a state of New York, or a state of Massachusetts.