I made it a point never to blacken all the boots and shoes over night, neither would I put any of them in the bar-room, but lock them up in a room where no one could get them without calling for me.  I got a piece of broken vessel, placed it in the room just before the boots, and put into it several pieces of small change, as if it had been given me for boot blacking; and almost every one that came in after their boots, would throw some small trifle into my contribution box, while I was there blacking away.  In this way, I made more than my landlord paid me, and I soon got a good stock of cash again.  One morning I blacked a gentleman’s boots who came in during the night by a steamboat.  After he had put on his boots, I was called into the bar-room to button his straps; and while I was performing this service, not thinking to see anybody that knew me, I happened to look up at the man’s face and who should it be but one of the very gamblers who had recently sold me.  I dropped his foot and bolted from the room as if I had been struck by an electric shock.  The man happened not to recognize me, but this strange conduct on my part excited the landlord, who followed me out to see what was the matter.  He found me with my hand to my breast, groaning at a great rate.  He asked me what was the matter; but I was not able to inform him correctly, but said that I felt very bad indeed.  He of course thought I was sick with the colic and ran in the house and got some hot stuff for me, with spice, ginger, &c.  But I never got able to go into the bar-room until long after breakfast time, when I knew this man was gone; then I got well.

And yet I have no idea that the man would have hurt a hair of my head; but my first thought was that he was after me.  I then made up my mind to leave Portsmouth; its location being right on the border of a slave State.

A short time after this a gentleman put up there over night named Smith, from Perrysburgh, with whom I was acquainted in the North.  He was on his way to Kentucky to buy up a drove of fine horses, and he wanted me to go and help him to drive his horses out to Perrysburgh, and said he would pay all my expenses if I would go.  So I made a contract to go and agreed to meet him the next week, on a set day, in Washington, Ky., to start with his drove to the north.  Accordingly at the time I took a steamboat passage down to Maysville, near where I was to meet Mr. Smith with my trunk.  When I arrived at Maysville, I found that Washington was still six miles back from the river.  I stopped at a hotel and took my breakfast, and who should I see there but a captain of a boat, who saw me but two years previous going down the river Ohio with handcuffs on, in a chain gang; but he happened not to know me.  I left my trunk at the hotel and went out to Washington, where I found Mr. Smith, and learned that he was not going to start off with his drove until the next day.

The following letter which was addressed to the committee to investigate the truth of my narrative, will explain this part of it to the reader and corroborate my statements: