Page:Sketchesinhistory00pett.pdf/72

had any, and started involuntarily at every noise, but sat upon the deck and soon fell asleep. An hour or two after I saw a steamer coming out of Cleveland harbor, and when she had passed nearly a mile away, she turned and came toward us. I took my glass and looked at her, and saw a man with a glass scanning my vessel. After coming near enough to see distinctly all that was on my deck, they bore away on their course to Buffalo. I knew, of course, that these men were fugitive slaves, though they were the first that I had ever seen. I had heard it remarked that it wras only the smartest niggers that ever got away, and thought I, if these are the smartest, what stupid animals the masses of the slaves must be; although I have since seen many of them escaping by the U. G. R. R., I still think these appeared the most stupid and degraded specimens I have ever seen. They would not talk, and seemed incapable of giving an intelligible account of their escape, or from whence they came, except that they had lived somewhere in Virginia on a tobacco plantation, were sold and driven with a large coffle in chains to the Ohio River, and shipped for ‘down river.’ They left the boat and got ashore, were taken in charge by the agents of the XL G. R. R., though at the time I had never heard of that institution, and my vessel was pressed into the service, and constituted an ‘extension of the track’ without my knowing it; as to their progress after they landed in Ohio, I learned that afterwards. While they were on my vessel I felt little interest in them, and had no idea that the love of liberty as a part of man’s nature was in the least possible degree felt or understood by them. Before entering Buffalo harbor, I ran in near the Canada shore, manned a boat and landed them on the beach. I then handed to them the purse and all its contents, and told them that they were free. They