What my feelings were when I reached the free shore can be better imagined than described. I trembled all over with deep emotion, and I could feel my hair rise up on my head. I was on what was called a _free_ soil, among a people who had no slaves. I saw white men at work, and no slave smarting beneath the lash. Everything was indeed _new_ and wonderful. Not knowing where to find a friend, and being ignorant of the country, unwilling to inquire, lest I should betray my ignorance, it was a whole week before I reached Cincinnati. At one place where I put up, I had a great many more questions put to me than I wished to answer. At another place, I was very much annoyed by the officiousness of the landlord, who made it a point to supply every guest with newspapers. I took the copy handed me, and turned it over, in a somewhat awkward manner, I suppose. He came to me to point out a veto, or some other very important news. I thought it best to decline his assistance, and gave up the paper, saying my eyes were not in a fit condition to read much. At another place, the neighbors, on learning that a Kentuckian was at the tavern, came, in great earnestness, to find out what my business was. Kentuckians sometimes came there to kidnap their citizens. They were in the habit of watching them close. I at length satisfied them by assuring them that I was not, nor my father before me, any slave-holder at all; but, lest their suspicions should be excited in another direction, I added my grandfather was a slave-holder. * * * * * At daylight we were in Canada. When I stepped ashore here, I said, sure enough, I AM FREE. Good heavens! what a sensation, when it first visits the bosom of a full-grown man; one _born_ to bondage; one who had been taught, from early infancy, that this was his inevitable lot for life! Not till _then_ did I dare to cherish, for a moment, the feeling that _one_ of the limbs of my body was my own. The slaves often say, when cut in the hand or foot, “Plague on the old foot” or “the old hand! It is master’s,—let him take care of it. Nigger don’t care if he never get well.” My hands, my feet, were now my own. It will be recollected that George, in conversing with Eliza, gives an account of a scene in which he was violently beaten by his master’s young son. This incident was suggested by the following letter from John M. Nelson to Mr. Theodore Weld, given in _Slavery as It Is_, p. 51. Mr. Nelson removed from Virginia to Highland County, Ohio, many years since, where he is extensively known and respected. The letter is dated January 3d, 1839.