I had heard of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, and all the southern states, but was ignorant of the free states, generally.

New York city was our northern limit, and to go there, and be forever harassed with the liability of being hunted down and returned to slavery--with the certainty of being treated ten times worse than we had ever been treated before was a prospect far from delightful, and it might well cause some hesitation about engaging in the enterprise.

The case, sometimes, to our excited visions,{218} stood thus: At every gate through which we had to pass, we saw a watchman; at every ferry, a guard; on every bridge, a sentinel; and in every wood, a patrol or slave-hunter.

We were hemmed in on every side.

The good to be sought, and the evil to be shunned, were flung in the balance, and weighed against each other.