If you ask me whether I had expected before I left home, to gain my liberty by shedding men's blood, or breaking their limbs?
I answer, no! and as evidence of this, I had provided no weapon whatever; not so much as a penknife--it never once entered my mind.

I cannot say that I expected to have the ill fortune of meeting with any human being who would attempt to impede my flight.
If you ask me if I expected when I left home to gain my liberty by fabrications and untruths?
I answer, no! my parents, slaves as they were, had always taught me, when they could, that "truth may be blamed but cannot be shamed;" so far as their example was concerned, I had no habits of untruth.

I was arrested, and the demand made upon me, "Who do you belong to ?" knowing the fatal use these men would make of _my_ truth, I at once concluded that they had no more right to it than a highwayman has to a traveller's purse.
If you ask me whether I now really believe that I gained my liberty by those lies?
I answer, no! I now believe that I should be free, had I told the truth; but, at that moment, I could not see any other way to baffle my enemies, and escape their clutches.
The history of that day has never ceased to inspire me with a deeper hatred of slavery; I never recur to it but with the most intense horror at a system which can put a man not only in peril of liberty, limb, and life itself, but which may even send him in haste to the bar of God with a lie upon his lips.
Whatever my readers may think, therefore, of the history of events of the day, do not admire in it the fabrications; but _see_ in it the impediments that often fall into the pathway of the flying bondman.

_See_ how human bloodhounds gratuitously chase, catch, and tempt him to shed blood and lie; how, when he would do good, evil is thrust upon him..