The thought that men are made for other and better uses than slavery, thrives best under the gentle treatment of a kind master.

But the grim visage of slavery can assume no smiles which can fascinate the partially enlightened slave, into a forgetfulness of his bondage, nor of the desirableness of liberty.
I was not through the first month of this, my second year with the kind and gentlemanly Mr.Freeland, before I was earnestly considering and advising plans for gaining that freedom, which,{211} when I was but a mere child, I had ascertained to be the natural and inborn right of every member of the human family.

The desire for this freedom had been benumbed, while I was under the brutalizing dominion of Covey; and it had been postponed, and rendered inoperative, by my truly pleasant Sunday school engagements with my friends, during the year 1835, at Mr.
Freeland's.

It had, however, never entirely subsided.

I hated slavery, always, and the desire for freedom only needed a favorable breeze, to fan it into a blaze, at any moment.