Up to that time, a colored man was deemed a fool who confessed himself a runaway slave, not only because of the danger to which he exposed himself of being retaken, but because it was a confession of a very _low_ origin! Some of my colored friends in New Bedford thought very badly of my wisdom for thus exposing and degrading myself.

The only precaution I took, at the beginning, to prevent Master Thomas from knowing where I was, and what I was about, was the withholding my former name, my master's name, and the name of the state and county from which I came.

During the first three or four months, my speeches were almost exclusively made up of narrations of my own personal experience as a slave.

"Let us have the facts," said the people.

So also said Friend George Foster, who always wished to pin me down to my simple narrative.