CHAPTER XVI.
_Stratagem to get on board, the steamer.--My Irish friends.--My
success in reaching Cincinnati.--Reflections on again seeing
Kentucky.--I get employment in a hotel.--My fright at seeing the
gambler who sold me.--I leave Ohio with Mr. Smith.--His letter.--My
education._
The greatest of my adventures came off when I arrived at Jefferson
City. There I expected to meet an advertisement for my person; it was
there I must cross the river or take a steamboat down; it was there I
expected to be interrogated and required to prove whether I was
actually a free man or a slave. If I was free, I should have to show
my free papers; and if I was a slave I should be required to tell who
my master was.
I stopped at a hotel, however, and ascertained that there was a
steamboat expected down the river that day for St. Louis. I also found
out that there were several passengers at that house who were going
down on board of the first boat. I knew that the captain of a
steamboat could not take a colored passenger on board of his boat from
a slave state without first ascertaining whether such person was bond
or free; I knew that this was more than he would dare to do by the
laws of the slave states--and now to surmount this difficulty it
brought into exercise all the powers of my mind.
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