While she spoke, Brown examined her carefully. Although her face was bruised, she was a beautiful black woman who stood erect, proud, and was more self-assured than any Negro he had ever seen. Her extraordinary appearance and demeanor increased his natural caution, and he asked, “Why do you tell me this?”

“Because of my good treatment by Mr. Swanson and my need to escape from the Hopewell overseer, Mr. Perkins. When I told Big William what I had learned, he urged me to talk to you.”

Brown had Sergeant Alonzo Baker bring a chart of the coastal area. They could see that there was an almost impregnable bridge crossing where the main road was traversed by a deep waterway, only a half mile from the town. This crucial point was about ten miles from the open sea but only a fourth that distance from the nearest site where the British might land, and there was no other route into Savannah. When shown the map, Quash said that her previous home was near this defense point but that there was a back path, not used by white people, that could bypass the bridge and provide access to Savannah if the streams were crossed at low tide.

That night, Brown arranged for a large and fast canoe to carry himself, four oarsmen, and Quash Dolly down the Ogeechee and then up the inland waterway to Tybee Island. There, they hoped to meet the British forces and share their information with Colonel Campbell. Brown instructed Quash to lie in the bottom of the boat and not glance at Hopewell plantation as they passed. For the rest of the trip she kept a shawl around her head, concealing her face and even turning away from any shore area where observers might be present. They all knew that it would be only a few hours before an alarm was raised about a slave having escaped, and the system for capturing a runaway was highly organized and rapidly implemented.

Quash had no compunction about the action she was taking. Regardless of the character of plantation owners or their treatment of Negroes, there was almost unanimity among slaves that their lot would be improved if the British could prevail in the ongoing war. She tended to draw a general conclusion from her own comparison of treatment by Quintus Swanson with what she had recently experienced at the hands of Andrew Perkins. She knew that former slaves now in St. Augustine and up the Atlantic Coast had been well treated by the British, and that some had even been given uniforms and weapons so they could engage in combat. More important, of course, was this unexpected chance for complete manumission, as promised by Thomas Brown.

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