diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/MarkupText.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/MarkupText.java
index 2a7b813659..28d88e18a4 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/MarkupText.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/MarkupText.java
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 /*
  * The MIT License
  * 
- * Copyright (c) 2004-2009, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Kohsuke Kawaguchi
+ * Copyright (c) 2004-2010, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Kohsuke Kawaguchi
  * 
  * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
  * of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
@@ -267,7 +267,7 @@ public class MarkupText extends AbstractMarkupText {
      */
     public String toString(boolean preEscape) {
         if(tags.isEmpty())
-            return Util.escape(text);    // the most common case
+            return preEscape? Util.xmlEscape(text) : Util.escape(text);  // the most common case
 
         Collections.sort(tags);
 
diff --git a/core/src/test/java/hudson/MarkupTextTest.java b/core/src/test/java/hudson/MarkupTextTest.java
index dbed218fc5..1b5455cf94 100644
--- a/core/src/test/java/hudson/MarkupTextTest.java
+++ b/core/src/test/java/hudson/MarkupTextTest.java
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 /*
  * The MIT License
  * 
- * Copyright (c) 2004-2009, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Kohsuke Kawaguchi
+ * Copyright (c) 2004-2010, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Kohsuke Kawaguchi
  * 
  * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
  * of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
@@ -94,5 +94,12 @@ public class MarkupTextTest extends TestCase {
         assertEquals("&amp;<foo>&amp;&nbsp;&amp;",text.toString(false));
     }
 
+    public void testPreEscape() {
+        MarkupText text = new MarkupText("Line\n2   & 3\n<End>\n");
+        assertEquals("Line\n2   &amp; 3\n&lt;End>\n", text.toString(true));
+        text.addMarkup(4, "<hr/>");
+        assertEquals("Line<hr/>\n2   &amp; 3\n&lt;End>\n", text.toString(true));
+    }
+
     private static final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("issue #([0-9]+)");
 }