That night there were at least one thousand Garrisonians in Nantucket! A( sic) the close of this great meeting, I was duly waited on by Mr.John A.Collins--then the general agent of the Massachusetts anti-slavery society--and urgently solicited by him to become an agent of that society, and to publicly advocate its anti-slavery principles.

I was reluctant to take the proffered position.
I had not been quite three years from slavery--was honestly distrustful of my ability--wished to be excused; publicity exposed me to discovery and arrest by my master; and other objections came up, but Mr.Collins was not to be put off, and I finally consented to go out for three months, for I supposed that I should have got to the end of my story and my usefulness, in that length of time.
Here opened upon me a new life a life for which I had had no preparation.

I was a "graduate from the peculiar institution,"{280} Mr.
Collins used to say, when introducing me, _"with my diploma written on my back!"_ The three years of my freedom had been spent in the hard school of adversity.

My hands had been furnished by nature with something like a solid leather coating, and I had bravely marked out for myself a life of rough labor, suited to the hardness of my hands, as a means of supporting myself and rearing my children.
Now what shall I say of this fourteen years' experience as a public advocate of the cause of my enslaved brothers and sisters?
The time is but as a speck, yet large enough to justify a pause for retrospection--and a pause it must only be.
Young, ardent, and hopeful, I entered upon this new life in the full gush of unsuspecting enthusiasm.

The cause was good; the men engaged in it were good; the means to attain its triumph, good; Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage.