“Harriet, I have brought all my young cousins to see you.  I want you to make good abolitionists of them by telling them the history of your life—­what you have seen and suffered in slavery.”

Turning to us he said: 

“Harriet has just escaped from her master, who is visiting in Syracuse, and is on her way to Canada.  She will start this evening and you may never have another opportunity of seeing a slave girl face to face, so ask her all you care to know of the system of slavery.”

For two hours we listened to the sad story of her childhood and youth, separated from all her family and sold for her beauty in a New Orleans market when but fourteen years of age.  The details of her story I need not repeat.  The fate of such girls is too well known to need rehearsal.  We all wept together as she talked, and, when Cousin Gerrit returned to summon us away, we needed no further education to make us earnest abolitionists.

Dressed as a Quakeress, Harriet started at twilight with one of Mr. Smith’s faithful clerks in a carriage for Oswego, there to cross the lake to Canada.  The next day her master and the marshals from Syracuse were on her track in Peterboro, and traced her to Mr. Smith’s premises.  He was quite gracious in receiving them, and, while assuring them that there was no slave there, he said that they were at liberty to make a thorough search of the house and grounds.  He invited them to stay and dine and kept them talking as long as possible, as every hour helped Harriet to get beyond their reach; for, although she had eighteen hours the start of them, yet we feared some accident might have delayed her.  The master was evidently a gentleman, for, on Mr. Smith’s assurance that Harriet was not there, he made no search, feeling that they could not do so without appearing to doubt his word.  He was evidently surprised to find an abolitionist so courteous and affable, and it was interesting to hear them in conversation, at dinner, calmly discussing the problem of slavery, while public sentiment was at white heat on the question.  They shook hands warmly at parting and expressed an equal interest in the final adjustment of that national difficulty.

In due time the clerk returned with the good news that Harriet was safe with friends in a good situation in Canada.  Mr. Smith then published an open letter to the master in the New York Tribune, saying “that he would no doubt rejoice to know that his slave Harriet, in whose fate he felt so deep an interest, was now a free woman, safe under the shadow of the British throne.  I had the honor of entertaining her under my roof, sending her in my carriage to Lake Ontario, just eighteen hours before your arrival:  hence my willingness to have you search my premises.”