were not expected to return till the evening of the day following.  Having procured forged certificates of freedom, for which they paid twenty-five dollars, each, they came forward with expedition by railway and steam boat.  They had heard of emancipation in the British West Indies, and the efforts of the abolitionists in the States, but they were unacquainted with the existence of vigilance committees, to facilitate the escape of runaway slaves.  We assisted them to proceed to the house of a relative of one of our party, out of the track of the pursuer, should they be followed.  There is little doubt that they have safely reached Canada, for I was told at Albany, public opinion had become so strong in favor of self-emancipation, that if a runaway were seized in the city, it is probable he would be rescued by the people.

I would also point attention to the fact, which is brought to light by this relation, that the slave-holders have not only to contend with the honest and open-handed means which the abolitionists most righteously employ,[A] to facilitate the escape of slaves, but with the mercenary acts of members of their own community, who live by the manufacture and sale of forged free papers.

[Footnote A:  See Deut. xxiii, 15, 16.]

During my stay in Albany, I waited upon William H. Seward, the Governor, and on Luther Bradish, the Lieutenant Governor of the State of New York.  It will, I trust, be considered no breach of confidence, if I state that I found their sentiments on the true principles of liberty, worthy of the enlightened legislators and first magistrates of a free republic.  They concur in the general sentiment that public opinion in this metropolitan State is making rapid progress in favor of full and impartial justice to the people of color, a movement to which their own example in the high stations which they adorn has given a powerful impulse.

I attended part of the sittings of the Senate and Assembly, and conversed with a number of members of both houses.  The public business was transacted with at least as much order and decorum as in the Lords and Commons of Great Britain.  I left Albany the same evening, and had the satisfaction of hearing, a few days afterwards, that the repeal of “the nine months law” had passed both houses, and was ratified by the Governor; and that in the Assembly upwards of fifty members had voted for it, although it was thought not ten would have done so two years since.  By this change of the law any slave brought by his master within the limits of the State, even with his own consent, is not obliged to return to slavery.