In some notices, the fugitive's voice is closer to the surface of the words, and the censoring hand of the narrator is weaker and less visible. In the following notice, for example, published in the Charleston Courier, the narrator conveys the immediacy of the slave's words by shifting from the past to the narrative present tense and preceding the reported statement with a dash to indicate dialogue:  
An African.
CAME on this day to my plantation on South Santee, a Mandingo NEGRO MAN [...] : He speaks the guinea language to one of my Negroes - says that he does not know his master's name, nor the way back to his plantation, which he left a week ago, and is directed by a driver named Prince, who abused him and imposed on him. He mentions that his African name is Muldy, his present name Galter; that his master lives mostly in town, and has a waiting man called Dick (Charleston Courier, 15 March 1805). [My emphasis]  
Still more audible are the words of Plenty, a slave from Carolina, and Catharine and Charles, two Jamaican slaves whose words come across to readers with only the minimum of distortion:  
Fifty Dollars Reward.
PLENTY, a Negro Runaway
From the Subscriber, and going about with a ticket under the pretence of looking for a master, having declared his intention not to return until he be shot, and there being in all probability not other method to cure him of the hostile disposition visibly increasing in him, having lately threatened the lives of several persons, and information being received of Plenty having twice made his escape through the indulgence of persons who out of regard for the master would not fire at him. [...]