slaves carried a written pass to this effect.  Tom was shrewd; and, having learned to write fairly well, he wrote himself a pass, which was of the usual kind, stating his name, to whom he belonged, and that he was privileged to hire himself out wherever he could, coming and going as he pleased.  Where the slave was an exceptional one, and where the owner had only two or three slaves, a pass would readily be given to hire himself out, or hire his own time, as it was generally called, he being required to turn over to his master a certain amount of his earnings, each month or week, and to make a report to his master of his whereabouts and receipts.  Sometimes the slave would be required to turn in to his master a certain sum, as, for instance, fifty or one hundred dollars a year; and he would have to earn that before he could use any of his earnings for himself.  If he was a mechanic he would have little trouble in doing this, as the wages of such were often quite liberal.  This kind of a pass was rarely, if ever, given by the planters having large numbers of slaves.  Another kind of pass read something like this:  “Pass my boy or my girl,” as the case might be, the name being attached.  These were only given to permit the slave to go from the farm of his own master to that of another.  Some men had wives or children belonging on neighboring farms, and would be given passes to visit them.  Without such a pass they were liable to be stopped and turned back to their homes.  There was, however, a good deal of visiting without passes, but it was against the general rule which required them; and any slave leaving home without a pass was liable to punishment if discovered.  On our plantation passes were never given, but the slaves did visit in the neighborhood, notwithstanding, and would sometimes slip into town at night.  Tom had in this way seen the pass of a neighboring slave to hire out; and it was from this he learned the form from which he wrote his, and which opened his way to freedom.  Upon reading Tom’s pass, the captain did not hesitate, but hired him at once; and Tom worked his way to New Orleans, to which city the boat was bound.  In the meantime Boss took me and we drove to numerous stations, where he telegraphed ahead for his run-away boy Tom.  But Tom reached New Orleans without hindrance, and there fell in with the steward of a Boston steamer, and, getting aboard of it, was soon on the ocean, on his way to that city where were so many friends of the slave.  Arriving there he made his way to Canada; which was, for so many generations, the only land of freedom attainable to American slaves.

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NEWS of tom’s reaching Canada.