 Chapter 21 of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. My escape from slavery. Closing incidents of my life as a slave. Reasons why full particulars of the manner of my escape will not be given. Craftiness and malice of slaveholders. Suspicion of aiding a slave's escape about as dangerous as positive evidence. Want of wisdom shown in publishing details of the escape of fugitives. Published accounts reach the masters, not the slaves. Slaveholders stimulated to greater watchfulness. Authors conditioned discontent. Suspicions implied by master Hughes Manor when receiving my wages. His occasional generosity. Difficulties in the way of escape. Every avenue guarded. Planned to obtain money. Author allowed to hire his time. A gleam of hope attends camp meeting without permission. Anger of master Hugh there at the resolve. My plans of escape accelerated thereby. The day for my departure fixed harassed by doubts and fears. Painful thoughts of separation from friends. The attempt made its success. I will now make the kind reader acquainted with the closing incidents of my life as a slave. Having already trenched upon the limit allotted to my life as a free man. Before however proceeding with this narration. It is perhaps proper that I should frankly state in advance. My intention to withhold a part of the facts connected with my escape from slavery. There are reasons for this suppression which I trust the reader will deem altogether valid. It may be easily conceived that up full and complete statement of all the facts pertaining to the flight of a bond man. Might implicate and embarrass some who may have wittingly or unwittingly assisted him. And no one can wish me to involve any man or woman who has befriended me even in the liability of embarrassment or trouble. Keen is the scent of the slave holder like the fangs of the rattlesnake is malice retains its poison long. And although it is not nearly 17 years since I made my escape it is well to be careful in dealing with the circumstances relating to it. Were I to give but a shadowy outline of the process adopted with characteristic aptitude. The crafty and malicious among the slave holders might possibly hit upon the track I pursued. And involve someone in suspicion which in a slave state is about as bad as positive evidence. The colored man there must not only shun evil but shun the very appearance of evil or be condemned as a criminal. A slave holding community has a peculiar taste for ferreting out offenses against the slave system. Justice there being more sensitive in its regard for the peculiar rights of this system than for any other interest or institution. By stringing together a train of events and circumstances even if I were not very explicit the means of escape might be ascertained. And possibly those means be rendered thereafter no longer available to the liberty seeking children of bondage I have left behind me. No anti slavery man can wish me to do anything favoring such results. And no slave holding reader has any right to expect the apartment of such information. While therefore it would afford me pleasure and perhaps would materially add to the interest of my story where I had liberty to gratify a curiosity which I know to exist in the minds of many as to the manner of my escape. I must deprive myself of this pleasure and the curious of the gratification which such a statement of facts would afford. I would allow myself to suffer under the greatest imputations that evil minded men might suggest rather than exculpate myself by an explanation and thereby run the hazard of closing the slightest avenue by which a brother in suffering might clear himself of the chains and feathers of slavery. The practice of publishing every new invention by which a slave is known to escape from slavery as neither wisdom nor necessities to sustain it had not Henry box Brown and his friends attracted slave holding attention to the manner of his escape. We might have had a thousand box Browns per annum the singularly original plan adopted by William and Ellen crafts perished with the first using because every slave holder in the land was surprised of it. The saltwater slave who hung in the guards of a steamer being washed three days and three nights like another Jonah by the waves of the sea has by the publicity given to the circumstance set a spot on the guards of every steamer departing from southern ports. I've never approved of the very public manner in which some of our Western friends have conducted what they call the underground railroad but which I think by their open declarations has been made most emphatically the upper ground railroad. Its stations are far better known to the slaveholders than to the slaves. I honor those good men and women for their noble daring and willingly subjecting themselves to persecution by openly abowing their participation in the escape of slaves. Nevertheless, the good resulting from such a vows is of a very questionable character. It may kindle an enthusiasm very pleasant to inhale but that is of no practical benefit to themselves, nor to the slaves escaping. Something is more evident than that such disclosures are a positive evil to the slaves remaining and seeking to escape in publishing such accounts the anti slavery man addresses the slave holder not the slave. He stimulates the format to greater watchfulness and adds to his facilities for capturing a slave. There is something to the slave self of Mason and Dixon's line as well as to those north of it, and then discharging the duty of aiding the latter on their way to freedom we should be careful to do nothing which would be likely to hinder the former in making their escape from slavery. Despite the gestation of slavery that I would keep the merciless slave holder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by the slave. He should be left to imagine himself surrounded by myriads of invisible tormentors, ever ready to snap from his infernal grasp, his trembling In pursuing his victim let him be left to feel his way in the dark, let shades of darkness commensurate with his crime shut every ray of light from his pathway. And let him be made to feel that at every step he takes with the hellish purpose of reducing a brother man to slavery he is running the frightful risk of having his hot brains dashed out by an invisible hand. Not enough of this I will now proceed to the statement of those facts connected with my escape for which I am alone responsible and for which no one can be made to suffer but myself. The situation in the year 1838 of my escape was comparatively a free and easy one so far at least as the wants of the physical man were concerned that the reader will bear in mind that my troubles from the beginning have been less physical than mental and he will thus be prepared to find after what is narrated in the previous chapters that slave life was adding nothing to its charms for me as I grew older and became better acquainted with it. The practice from week to week of openly robbing me of all my earnings kept the nature and character of slavery constantly before me. I could be robbed by indirection but this was too open and bare faced to be endured. I could see no reason why I should at the end of each week pour the reward of my honest toil into the purse of any man. The thought itself vexed me and the manner in which Master Hugh received my wages vexed me more than the original long. Carefully counting the money and rolling it out dollar by dollar he would look me in the face as if he would search my heart as well as my pocket and reproachfully ask me is that all? Implying that I had perhaps kept back part of my wages or if not so the demand was made possibly to make me feel that after all I was an unprofitable servant. Draining me of the last cent of my hard earnings he would however occasionally when I brought home an extra large sum dole out to me a sixpence or a shilling with a view perhaps of kindling up my gratitude but this practice had the opposite effect. It was an admission of my right to the whole sum. The fact that he gave me any part of my wages was proof that he suspected that I had a right to the whole of them. I always felt uncomfortable after having received anything in this way for I feared that the giving me a few cents might possibly ease his conscience and make him feel himself a pretty honorable robber after all. Held to a strict account and kept under a close watch the old suspicion of my running away not having been entirely removed. Escape from slavery even in Baltimore was very difficult. The railroad from Baltimore to Philadelphia was under regulation so stringent that even free colored travelers were almost excluded. They must have free papers they must be measured and carefully examined before they were allowed to enter the cars. They only went in the daytime even when so examined the steamboats were under regulations equally stringent. All the great turnpikes leading northward were beset with kidnappers a class of men who watched the newspapers for advertisements for runaway slaves making their living by the accursed reward of slave hunting. My discontent grew upon me and I was on the lookout for means of escape with money I could easily have managed the manner and therefore I hit upon the plan of soliciting the privilege of hiring my time. It is quite common in Baltimore to allow slaves this privilege and it is the practice also in New Orleans. A slave who is considered trustworthy can by paying his master a definite sum regularly at the end of each week dispose of his time as he likes. It so happened that I was not in very good odor and I was far from being a trustworthy slave. Nevertheless I've watched my opportunity when master Thomas came to Baltimore for I was still his property he only acted as his agent. In the spring of 1838 to purchase his spring supply of goods and applied to him directly for the much coveted privilege of hiring my time. This request master Thomas and hesitatingly refused to grant and he charged me with some sternness with inventing the strategy to make my escape. He told me I could go nowhere but he could catch me and in the event of my running away I might be assured he should spare no pains in his efforts to recapture me. He recounted with a good deal of eloquence the many kind offices he had done me and exhorted me to be contented and obedient. Lay out no plans for the future said he if you behave yourself properly I will take care of you now kind and considered as this offer was it failed to suit me into repose. In spite of master Thomas and I may say in spite of myself also I continue to think and we're still to think almost exclusively about the injustice and wickedness of slavery. No effort of mine or of his could silence this trouble giving thought or change my purpose to run away. About two months after applying to master Thomas for the privilege of hiring my time I applied to master Hugh for the same liberties supposing him to be unacquainted with the fact that I had made a similar application to master Thomas and had been refused. My boldness and making this request fairly astounded him at the first he gazed at me in amazement but I have many good reasons for pressing the matter and after listening to them a while he did not absolutely refuse but told me he would think of it. Here then was a gleam of hope once master of my own time I felt sure that I could make over and above my obligation to him a dollar or two every week. Some slaves have made enough in this way to purchase their freedom. It is a sharp spur to industry and some of the most enterprising colored men in Baltimore hire themselves in this way. After mature reflection as I must suppose it was master Hugh granted me the privilege in question on the following terms. I was to be allowed all my time to make all bargains for work to buy my own employment and to collect my own wages. And in return for this liberty I was required or obliged to pay him $3 at the end of each week and to board and close myself and buy my own caulking tools. A failure in any of these particulars would put an end to my privilege. This was a hard bargain the wear and tear of clothing the losing and breaking of tools and the expensive board made it necessary for me to earn at least $6 per week to keep even with the world. All who are acquainted with caulking know how uncertain and irregular that employment is. It can be done to advantage only in dry weather for it is useless to put wet okam into a scene rain or shine however work or no work at the end of each week the money must be forthcoming. Master Hugh seemed to be very much pleased for a time with this arrangement and well he might be for it was decidedly in his favor. It relieved him of all anxiety concerning me. His money was sure. He had armed my love of liberty with a lash and a driver far more efficient than any I had before known. And while he derived all the benefits of slaveholding by the arrangement without its evils. I endured all the evils of being a slave and yet suffered all the care and anxiety of a responsible free man. Nevertheless thought I it is a valuable privilege another step in my career toward freedom. It was something even to be permitted to stagger under the disadvantages of liberty and I was determined to hold on to the newly gained footing by all proper industry. I was ready to work by night as well as by day and being in the enjoyment of excellent health I was able not only to meet my current expenses but also to lay by a small cemetery end of each week. All went on bus from the month of May till August then for reasons which will become apparent as I proceed my much valued liberty was rested from me. During the week previous to this to me calamitous event I made arrangements with a few young friends to accompany them on Saturday night to a camp meeting held about 12 miles from Baltimore. On the evening of our intended start for the campground something occurred in the shipyard where I was at work which detained me unusually late and compelled me either to disappoint my young friends or to neglect carrying my weekly dues to master Hugh. Knowing that I had the money and could hand it to him on another day I decided to go to camp meeting and to pay him the $3 for the past week on my return. Once on the campground I was induced to remain one day longer than I had intended when I left home but as soon as I returned I went straight to his house on fell street to hand him his my money. Unhappily the fatal mistake had been committed I found him exceedingly angry he exhibited all the signs of apprehension and wrath which a slave holder may be surmised to exhibit on the supposed escape of a favorite slave. You rascal I have a great mind to give you a severe whipping how do you go out of the city without first asking and obtaining my permission. Sir said I hired my time and paid you the price you asked for it. I did not know that it was any part of the bargain that I should ask you when or where I should go. You did not know you rascal you were bound to show yourself here every Saturday night after reflecting a few moments he became somewhat cooled down but evidently greatly troubled he said now you scoundrel you have done for yourself you shall hide your time no longer. The next thing I shall hear of will be you're running away bring home your tools and your clothes at once I'll teach you how to go off in this way. This ended my partial freedom I could hire my time no longer and I obeyed my master's orders at once. The little taste of liberty which I had had, although as the reader will have seen it was far from being alloyed by no means enhance my contentment with slavery. Punished thus by Master Hugh it was now my turn to punish him since that I you will make up slave of me I will await your orders and all things and instead of going to look for work on Monday morning as I had formerly done. I remained at home during the entire week without the performance of a single stroke of work Saturday night came and he called upon me as usual for my wages. I of course told him I had done no work and had no wages. Here we were at the point of coming to blows his wrath had been accumulating during the whole week for he evidently saw that I was making no effort to get work for was most aggravatingly awaiting his orders in all things. As I look back to this behavior of mine I scarcely know what possessed me best to try for with those who had such unlimited power to bless or to blast me. Master Hugh raved and swore his determination to get hold of me, but wisely for him and happily for me his wrath only employed those very harmless, impalpable missiles which roll from a limbered tongue. In my desperation I had fully made up my mind to measure strength with Master Hugh in case he should undertake to execute his threats. I'm glad there was no necessity for this for resistance to him could not have ended so happily for me as it did in the case of Covey. He was not a man to be safely resisted by a slave and I freely own that in my conduct toward him in this instance there was more folly than wisdom. Master Hugh closed his reproof by telling me that hereafter I need give myself no uneasiness about getting work, but he would himself see to getting work for me and enough of it at that. This threat I confess had some terror in it and on thinking the matter over during the Sunday I resolved not only to saving the trouble of getting me work but that upon the third day of September I would attempt to make my escape from slavery. The refusal to allow me to hire my time therefore hastened the period of my flight. I had three weeks now in which to prepare for my journey. Once resolved I felt a certain degree of repose and on Monday instead of waiting for Master Hugh to seek employment for me. I was up by break of day and off to the shipyard of Mr Butler on the city block near the drawbridge. I was a favorite with Mr B and young as I was I had served as his foreman on the float stage at caulking. Of course I easily obtained work and at the end of the week which by the way was exceedingly fine. I brought Master Hugh nearly nine dollars. The effect of this mark of returning good sense on my part was excellent. He was very much pleased he took the money commended me and told me I might have done the same thing that week before. It is a blessed thing that the turret may not always know the thoughts and purposes of his victim. Master Hugh little knew what my plans were. They're going to camp meeting without asking his permission. The insolent answers made to his approaches. The silky department the week after being deprived of the privilege of hiring my time had awakened in him the suspicion that I might be cherishing disloyal purposes. My object therefore and working steadily was to remove suspicion and in this I succeeded admirably. He probably thought I was never better satisfied with my condition than at the very time I was planning my escape. The second week passed and again I carried him my four weeks wages nine dollars. And so well pleased was he that he gave me 25 cents and bad me make good use of it. I told him I would for one of the uses to which I meant to put it was to pay my fare on the underground railroad. Things without went on as usual but I was passing through the same internal excitement and anxiety which I had experienced two years and a half before. The failure in that instance was not calculated to increase my confidence in the success of this my second attempt. And I knew that a second failure could not leave me where my first did I must either get to the far north or be sent to the far south. Besides the exercise of mine from the state of facts I have the painful sensation of being about to separate from a circle of honest and warm hearted friends in Baltimore. The father such a separation where the hope of ever meeting again is excluded and where there can be no correspondence is very painful. It is my opinion that thousands would escape from slavery who now remain there but for the strong chords of affection that bind them to their families relatives and friends. The daughter is hindered from escaping by the love she bears her mother and the father by the love he bears his children and so to the end of the chapter. I had no relations in Baltimore and I saw no probability of ever living in the neighborhood of sisters and brothers, but the thought of leaving my friends was among the strongest obstacles to my running away. The last two days of the week Friday and Saturday were spent mostly in collecting my things together for my journey. Having worked for days that week for my master I handed him $6 on Saturday night. I seldom spent my Sundays at home and for fear that something might be discovered in my conduct. I kept up my custom and absented myself all day. On Monday the third day of September 1838 in accordance with my resolution, I bet farewell to the city of Baltimore and to that slavery which had been my abhorrence from childhood. How I got away, in what direction I traveled, whether by land or by water, whether with or without assistance, must for reasons already mentioned remain unexplained. In chapter 21, chapter 22 of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Life as a free man, chapter 22, liberty attained. Transition from slavery to freedom, a wanderer in New York, feelings on reaching that city, an old acquaintance met, unfavorable impressions, loneliness and insecurity, an apology for slaves who returned to their masters compelled to tell my condition, suckered by a sailor, David Ruggles, the underground railroad, marriage, baggage taken from me, kindness of Nathan Johnson, the author's change of name, dark notions of northern civilization, the contrast colored people in New Bedford, an incident illustrating their spirit. The author, as a common laborer, denied work at his trade the first winter at the north, repulsed at the doors of the church, sanctified hate, the liberator and its editor. There is no necessity for any extended notice of the incidents of this part of my life. There is nothing very striking or peculiar about my career as a free man when viewed apart from my life as a slave. The relation subsisting between my early experience and that which I am now about to narrate is perhaps my best apology for adding another chapter to this book. Disappearing from the kind reader in a flying cloud or balloon, pardon the figure, driven by the wind and knowing not where I should land, whether in slavery or in freedom, it is proper that I should remove at once all anxiety by frankly making known where I elided. The flight was a bold and perilous one, but here I am in the great city of New York safe and sound without loss of blood or bone. In less than a week after leaving Baltimore, I was walking amid the hurrying throng and gazing upon the dazzling wonders of Broadway. The dreams of my childhood and the purposes of my manhood were now fulfilled. A free state around me and a free earth under my feet. What a moment was this to me. A whole year was pressed into a single day, a new world burst upon my agitated vision. I've often been asked by kind friends for whom I have told my story, how I felt when first I found myself beyond the limits of slavery. And I must say here, as I have often said to them, there is scarcely anything about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. It was a moment of joyous excitement, which no words can describe. In a letter to a friend written soon after reaching New York, I said I felt as one might be supposed to feel on escaping from a den of hungry lions. But in a moment like that sensations are too intense and too rapid for words. Anguish and grief like darkness and rain may be described by joy and gladness like the rainbow of promise to fire like the pen and pencil. For 10 or 15 years I had been dragging a heavy chain with a huge block attached to it, cumbering my every motion. I felt myself doomed to drag this chain and this block through life. All efforts before it do separate myself from the hateful encumbrance that only seemed to rivet me the more firmly to it. Baffled and discouraged at times I had asked myself the question, may not this after all be God's work? May He not for wise ends have doomed me to this lot? A contest had been going on in my mind for years between the clear consciousness of right and the plausible errors of superstition. Between the wisdom of manly courage and the foolish weakness of timidity, the contest was now ended, the chain was severed, God and right stood vindicated, I was a free man, and the voice of peace and joy thrilled my heart. Free and joyous, however, as I was, joy was not the only sensation I experienced. It was like the quick blaze, beautiful at the first, but which subsiding leaves the building charred in desolate. I was soon taught that I was still in an enemy's land. A sense of loneliness and insecurity oppressed me sadly. I'd been but a few hours in New York before I was met in the streets by a fugitive slave well known to me and the information I got from him respecting New York did nothing to lessen my apprehension of danger. The fugitive in question was Allender's Jake in Baltimore, but said he I am William Dixon in New York. I knew Jake well and knew when Tali Allender and Mr. Price for the latter employed Master Hugh, as his foreman in his shipyard on Fells Point made an attempt to recapture Jake and failed. Jake told me all about his circumstances and how narrowly he escaped being taken back to slavery, that the city was now full of southerners returning from the springs, that the black people in New York were not to be trusted, that there were hired men on the lookout for fugitives from slavery, and who for a few dollars would betray me into the hands of the slave catchers that I must trust no man with my secret. That I must not think of going either on the wharves to work or to a boarding house to board and were still this same Jake told me it was not in his power to help me. He seemed even while cautioning me to be fearing last after all, I might be a party to a second attempt to recapture him. Under the inspiration of this thought I must suppose it was he gave signs of a wish to get rid of me and soon left me, his whitewash brushed in hand as he said for his work. He was soon lost to sight among the throng and I was alone again and easy prey to the kidnappers if any should happen to be on my track. New York seventeen years ago was less a place of safety for a runaway slave than now and I'll know how unsafe it now is under the new fugitive slave bill. I was much troubled, I had very little money, enough to buy me a few loaves of bread but not enough to pay board outside a lumber yard. I saw the wisdom of keeping away from the shipyards for if Master Hugh pursued me he would naturally expect to find me looking for work among the caulkers. For a time every door seemed closed against me, a sense of my loneliness and helplessness crept over me and covered me with something bordering on despair in the midst of thousands of my fellow men and yet a perfect stranger in the midst of human brothers and yet more fearful of them than of hungry wolves. I was without home, without friends, without work, without money and without any definite knowledge of which way to go or where to look for a sucker. Some apology can easily be made for the few slaves who have, after making good their escape, turned back to slavery preferring the actual rule of their masters to the life of loneliness, apprehension, hunger and anxiety which meets them on their first arrival in a free state. It is difficult for a free man to enter into the feelings of such fugitives. He cannot see things in the same light with the slave because he does not and cannot look from the same point from which the slave does. Why do you tremble, he says to the slave, you are in a free state, but the difficulty is in realizing that he is in a free state, the slave might reply. A free man cannot understand why the slave master's shadow is bigger to the slave than the might and majesty of a free state, but when he reflects that the slave knows more about the slavery of his master than he does of the might and majesty of the free state, he has the explanation. The slave has been all his life learning the power of his master, being trained to dread his approach in only a few hours learning the power of the state. The master is to him a stern and flinty reality, but the state is little more than a dream. He has been accustomed to regard every white man as the friend of his master and every colored man as more or less under the control of his master's friends, the white people. It takes stout nerves to stand up in such circumstances. A man homeless, shelterless, breadless, friendless and moneyless is not in a condition to assume a very proud or joyous tone. And in just this condition was I while wandering about the streets of New York City and lodging at least one night among the barrels or one of its wharves. I was not only free from slavery, but I was free from home as well. The reader will easily see that I have something more than the simple fact of being free to think of in this extremity. I kept my secret as long as I could and at last was forced to go in search of an honest man, a man sufficiently human not to betray me into the hands of slave catchers. I was not a bad reader of the human face nor long in selecting the right man when once compelled to disclose the facts of my condition to someone. I found my man in the person of one who said his name was Stuart. He was a sailor, warm-hearted and generous, and he listened to my story with a brother's interest. I told him I was running for my freedom, knew not where to go, money almost gone, was hungry, thought it unsafe to go to the shipyards for work and needed a friend. Stuart promptly put me in the way of getting out of my trouble. He took me to his house and went in search of the late David Ruggles, who was then the secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee and a very active man in all anti-slavery works. Once in the hands of Mr. Ruggles, I was comparatively safe. I was hidden with Mr. Ruggles several days. In the meantime, my intended wife, Anna, came on from Baltimore to whom I had written informing her of my safe arrival at New York and in the presence of Mrs. Mitchell and Mr. Ruggles, we were married by Reverend James W. C. Pennington. Mr. Ruggles was the first officer on the Underground Railroad with whom I met after reaching the north and indeed the first of whom I ever heard anything. Learning that I was a caulker by trade, he promptly decided that New Bedford was the proper place to send me. Many ships that he are there fitted out for the wailing business and you may there find work at your trade and make a good living. Thus, in one fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I was saved in New Bedford regularly entered upon the exercise of the rights, responsibilities and duties of a free man. I may mention a little circumstance which annoyed me on reaching New Bedford. I had not a cent of money and lacked two dollars for paying our fare from Newport and our baggage not very costly was taken by the stage driver and held until I could raise the money to redeem it. This difficulty was soon surmounted. Mr. Nathan Johnson, to whom we had a line from Mr. Ruggles, not only received us kindly and hospitably, but on being informed about our luggage promptly loaned me two dollars with which to redeem my little property. I shall ever be deeply grateful both to Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson for the lively interest they were pleased to take in me in this hour of my extremist need. They not only gave myself and wife bread and shelter, but taught us how to begin to secure those benefits for ourselves. Long may they live and may blessings attend them in this life and in that which is to come. Once initiated into the new life of freedom and assured by Mr. Johnson that New Bedford was a safe place, the comparatively unimportant matter as to what should be my name came up for consideration. It was necessary to have a name in my new relations. The name given me by my beloved mother was no less pretentious than Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. I had, however, before leaving Maryland dispensed with the Augustus Washington and maintained the name Frederick Bailey. Between Baltimore and New Bedford, however, I had several different names, the better to avoid being overhauled by the hunters, which I had the reason to believe would be put on my track. Among honest men and honest men may well be content with one name and to acknowledge it at all times and in all places. But toward fugitives, Americans are not honest. When I arrived at New Bedford, my name was Johnson and finding that the Johnson family in New Bedford were already quite numerous, sufficiently so to reduce some confusion in attempts to distinguish one from another. There was the more reason for making another change in my name. In fact, Johnson had been assumed by nearly every slave who had arrived in New Bedford from Maryland, and this much to the annoyance of the original Johnson's of whom there were many in that place. I'm willing to have another of his own name added to the community in this unauthorized way after I spent a night in a day at his house gave me my present name. He'd been reading The Lady of the Lake and was pleased to regard me as a suitable person to wear this one of Scotland's many famous names. Considering the noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson, I felt that he, better than I, illustrated the virtues of the great Scottish chief. Sure I am, that had any slave catcher entered his domicile with a view to molest any one of his household, he would have shown himself like him of the stalwart hand. He would be amused at my ignorance when I tell the notions I had of the state of Northern wealth enterprise and civilization of wealth and refinement I suppose the North had none. My Columbian orator, which was almost my only book, had not done much to enlighten me concerning Northern society. The impressions I'd received were all wide of the truth. New Bedford especially took me by surprise in the solid wealth and grandeur there exhibited. I had formed my notions respecting the social condition of the free states by what I'd seen and known a free white non slave holding people in the slave states. Regarding slavery as the basis of wealth, I fancy that no people could become very wealthy without slavery. A free white man holding no slaves in the country, I had known to be the most ignorant and poverty stricken of men and the laughing stock even of slaves themselves called generally by them in derision poor white trash. Like the non slaveholders at the south and holding no slaves, I suppose the Northern people like them also in poverty and degradation. Judge then of my amazement and joy when I found as I did find the very laboring population of New Bedford living in better houses, more elegantly furnished, surrounded by more comfort and refinement than a majority of the slaveholders on the eastern shore of Maryland. There was my friend Mr. Johnson himself a colored man who at the south would have been regarded as a proper marketable commodity who lived in a better house. Dying at a richer board was the owner of more books. The reader of more newspapers was more conversant with the political and social condition of this nation and the world than nine-tenths of all the slaveholders of Talbot County, Maryland. Yet Mr. Johnson was a working man and his hands were hardened by honest toil. Here then was something for observation and study. Whence the difference, the explanation was soon furnished in the superiority of mind over simple brute force. Many pages might be given through the contrast and an explanation of its causes, but an incident or two will suffice to show the reader as to how the mystery gradually vanished before me. My first afternoon on reaching New Bedford was spent in visiting the wharves and viewing the shipping, the sight of the broad brim and the plain Quaker dress which met me at every turn greatly increased my sense of freedom and security. I am among the Quakers thought I am safe. Lying at the wharves and riding in the stream were full-rigged ships of finest model ready to start on wailing voyages. Upon the right and the left I was walled in by large granite-fronted warehouses crowded with the good things of this world. On the wharves I saw industry without bustle, labor without noise, and heavy toil without the whip. There was no loud singing as in southern ports where ships are loading or unloading, no loud cursing or swearing, but everything went on as smoothly as the works of a well-adjusted machine. How different was all this from the noisily fierce and clumsily absurd manner of labor life in Baltimore and St. Michael's. One of the first incidents which illustrated the superior mental character of northern labor over that of the south was the manner of unloading a ship's cargo of oil. In a southern port, 20 or 30 hands would have been employed to do what 5 or 6 did here with the aid of a single ox attached to the end of a fall. Main strength unassisted by skill is slavery's method of labor. An old ox worth $80 was doing in New Bedford what would have required $15,000 worth of human bones and muscles to have performed in a southern port. I found that everything was done here with a scrupulous regard to economy, both in regard to men and things, time and strength. The maid servant instead of spending at least a tenth part of her time in bringing and carrying water, as in Baltimore had the pump at her elbow. The wood was dry and snugly piled away for winter. Wood houses, indoor pumps, sinks, drains, self-shutting gates, washing machines, pounding barrels were all new things and told me that I was among a thoughtful and sensible people. To the ship repairing dock I went and saw the same wise prudence. The carpenter struck where they aimed and the caulkers wasted no blows and idle flourishes of the mallet. I learned that men went from New Bedford to Baltimore and bought old ships and brought them here to repair and made them better and more valuable than they ever were before. Men talked here of going wailing on a four years voyage with more coolness than sailors where I came from talked of growing a four months voyage. I now find that I could have landed in no part of the United States where I should have found a more striking and gratifying contrast to the condition of the free people of color in Baltimore than I found here in New Bedford. No colored man is really free in a slave holding state. He wears the badge of bondage while nominally free and is often subjected to hardships to which the slave is a stranger. But here in New Bedford it was my good fortune to see a pretty near approach to freedom on the part of the colored people. I was taken all the back when Mr. Johnson, who lost no time in making me acquainted with the fact, told me that there was nothing in the Constitution of Massachusetts to prevent a colored man from holding any office in the state. There in New Bedford the black man's children, although anti-slavery was then far from popular, went to school side by side with the white children and apparently without objection from any quarter. To make me at home Mr. Johnson assured me that no slave holder could take a slave from New Bedford that there were men there who would lay down their lives before such an outrage could be perpetrated. The colored people themselves were of the best metal and would fight for liberty to the death. Soon after my arrival in New Bedford I was told the following story which was said to illustrate the spirit of the colored people in that goodly town. A colored man and a fugitive slave happened to have a little quarrel and the former was heard to threaten the latter with informing his master of his whereabouts. As soon as this threat became known a notice was read from the desk of what was then the only colored church in the place stating that business of importance was to be then and there transacted. Special measures had been taken to secure the attendance of the would-be Judas and had proved successful. Accordingly at the hour appointed the people came and the betrayer also. All the usual formalities of public meetings were screwlessly gone through even to the offering prayer for divine direction in the duties of the occasion. The president himself performed this part of the ceremony and I was told that he was unusually fervent. Yet at the close of his prayer the old man one of the numerous family of Johnson's rose from his knees deliberately surveyed his audience and then said in a tone of solemn resolution, well friends we have got him here and I would now recommend that you young men should just take him outside the door and kill him. With this a large body of the congregation who well understood the business they had come there to transact, made a rush at the villain and doubtless would have killed him had he not availed himself of an open sash and made good his escape. He has never shown his head in New Bedford since that time. This little incident is perfectly characteristic of the spirit of the colored people in New Bedford. A slave could not be taken from that town 17 years ago any more than he could be so taken away now. The reason is that the colored people in that city are educated up to the point of fighting for their freedom as well as speaking for it. Once assured in my safety in New Bedford I put on the habiliments of a common laborer and went on the war in search of work. I had no notion of living on the honest and generous sympathy of my colored brother Johnson or that of the abolitionists. My cry was like that of hoods laborer oh only give me work. Happily for me I was not long in searching. I found employment the third day after my arrival in New Bedford in stowing a sloop with a load of oil for the New York market. It was new, hard and dirty work even for a caulker but I went at it with a glad heart and a willing hand. I was now my own master a tremendous fact and the rapturous excitement with which I seized the job may not easily be understood except by someone with an experience something like mine. The thoughts I can work I can work for a living I am not afraid of work. I have no master Hugh to rob me of my earnings place me in a state of independence beyond seeking friendship or support of any man. That day's work I consider the real starting point of something like a new existence. Having finished this job and got my pay for the same I went next in pursuit of a job at caulking. It so happened that Mr Rodney French late mayor of the city of New Bedford had a ship fitting out for a sea and to which there was a large job of caulking and coppering to be done. I applied to that noble hearted man for employment and he promptly told me to go to work. But going on the float stage for the purpose I was informed that every white man would leave the ship if I struck a blow upon her. Well well thought I this is a hardship but yet not a very serious one for me. The difference between the wages of a caulker and that of a common day laborer wasn't 100% in favor of the former. But then I was free and free to work though not at my trade. I now prepared myself to do anything which came to hand in the way of turning an honest penny. The first winter was unusually severe in consequence of the high prices of food. But even during that winter we probably suffered less than many who had been free all their lives. During the hardest of the winter a higher demand for food was raised. The first winter of the year was the second winter of the year. The second winter of the year was the third winter of the year. The second winter of the year was the third winter of the year. We were less than many who had been free all their lives. During the hardest of the winter I hired out for $9 a month and out of this rented two rooms for $9 per quarter and supplied my wife who was unable to work with food and some necessary articles of furniture. We were closely pinched to bring our wants within our means but the jail stood over the way and I had a wholesome dread of the consequences of running in debt. This winter passed and I was up with the times got plenty of work got well paid for it and felt that I had not done a foolish thing to leave Master Hugh and Master Thomas. I was now living in a new world and was wide awake to its advantages. I early began to attend the meetings of the colored people of New Bedford and to take part in them. I was somewhat amazed to see colored men drawing up resolutions and offering them for consideration. Several colored young men of New Bedford at that period gave promise of great usefulness. They were educated and possessed what seemed to me at that time very superior talents. Some of them have been cut down by death and others have removed two different parts of the world and some remain there now and justify in their present activities my early impressions of them. Among my first concerns on reaching New Bedford was to become united with the church for I had never given up in reality my religious faith. I had become lukewarm and in a back slidden state but I was still convinced that it was my duty to join the Methodist Church. I was not then aware of the powerful influence of that religious body in favor of the enslavement of my race nor did I see how the northern churches could be responsible for the conduct of southern churches. Neither did I fully understand how it could be my duty to remain separate from the church because bad men were connected with it. The slaveholding church with its covies, widens, albs and hopkins I could see through it once but I could not see how Elm Street Church in New Bedford could be regarded as sanctioning the Christianity of these characters in the church at St. Michael's. I therefore resolved to join the Methodist Church in New Bedford and to enjoy the spiritual advantage of public worship. The minister of the Elm Street Methodist Church was the Reverend Mr. Bonnie and although I was not allowed a seat in the body of the house and was proscribed on account of my color regarding this prescription simply as an accommodation of the unconverted congregation who had not yet been one to Christ and his brotherhood I was willing thus to be proscribed. Less sinners should be driven away from the saving power of the gospel. Once converted I thought they would be sure to treat me as a man and a brother. Surely thought I, these Christian people have none of this feeling against color. They at least have renounced this unholy feeling. Judge then the reader of my astonishment and mortification when I found as soon as I did find all my charitable assumptions at fault. An opportunity was soon afforded me for ascertaining the exact position of Elm Street Church on that subject. I had a chance of seeing the religious part of the congregation by themselves and although they disowned in effect their black brothers and sisters before the world I did think that where none but the saints were assembled and no offense could be given to the wicked and the gospel could not be blamed they would certainly recognize us as children of the same father and heirs of the same salvation on equal terms with themselves. The occasion to which I refer was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper that most sacred and most solemn of all the ordinances of the Christian Church. Mr. Bonnie had preached a very solemn and searching discourse which really proved him to be acquainted with the in those secrets of the human heart. At the close of his discourse the congregation was dismissed and the church remained to partake of the sacrament. I remain to see as I thought this holy sacrament celebrated in the spirit of its great founder. There were only about a half dozen colored members attached to the Elm Street Church at this time after the congregation was dismissed these descended from the gallery and took a seat against the wall most distant from the altar. Brother Bonnie was very animated and sung very sweetly. Salvation tears a joyful sound and soon began to administer the sacrament. I was anxious to observe the bearing of the colored members and the result was most humiliating. During the whole ceremony they looked like sheep without a shepherd. The white members went forward to the altar by the bench full and when it was evident that all the whites had been served with the bread and wine Brother Bonnie, pious brother Bonnie after a long pause as if inquiring whether all the white members had been served and fully assuring himself on that important point then raised his voice to an unnatural pitch and looking to the corner where his black sheep seemed penned back and with his hand exclaiming come forward colored friends come forward you too have an interest in the blood of Christ God is no respecter of persons come forward and take this holy sacrament to your comfort the colored members poor slavery souls went forward as invited I went out and have never been in that church since although I honestly went there with a view to joining that body I found it impossible to respect the religious profession of any who were under the dominion of this wicked prejudice and I could not therefore feel that in joining them I was joining a Christian church at all I tried other churches in New Bedford with the same result and finally I attached myself to a small body of colored methodists known as the Zion Methodists favored with the affection and confidence of the members of this humble communion I was soon made a class leader and a local preacher among them many seasons of peace and joy I experienced among them the remembrance of which is still precious although I could not see it to be my duty to remain with that body when I found that it consented to the same spirit which held my brethren in chains in four or five months after reaching New Bedford there came a young man to me with a copy of The Liberator the paper edited by William Lloyd Garrison and published by Isaac Knapp and asked me to subscribe for it I told him I had just escaped from slavery and was of course very poor and remarked further that I was unable to pay for it then the agent however very willingly took me as a subscriber and appeared to be much pleased with securing my name to his list from this time I was brought in contact with the mind of William Lloyd Garrison his paper took his place with me next to the Bible The Liberator was a paper after my own heart it detested slavery exposed hypocrisy and wickedness in high places made no truce with the traffickers in the bodies and souls of men it preached human brotherhood denounced depression and with all the solemnity of God's word demanded the complete emancipation of my race I not only liked I loved this paper and its editor he seemed to match for all the opponents of emancipation whether they spoke in the name of the law or the gospel his words were few full of holy fire and straight to the point learning to love him through his paper I was prepared to be pleased with his presence something of a hero worshiper by nature here was one on first sight to excite my love and reverence 17 years ago few men possessed a more heavenly countenance than William Lloyd Garrison and few men evinced a more genuine or a more exalted piety the Bible was his textbook held sacred as the word of the Eternal Father sinless perfection complete submission to insults and injuries literal obedience to the injunction if smitten on one side to turn the other also not only was Sunday a Sabbath but all days were Sabbaths and to be kept holy all sectarism false and mischievous they were generated throughout the world members of one body and the head Christ Jesus prejudice against color was rebellion against God of all men beneath the sky the slaves because most neglected and despised were nearest and dearest to his great heart those ministers who defended slavery from the Bible were of their father the devil and those churches which fellowship slaveholders as Christians were synagogues of Satan and our nation was a nation of liars never loud or noisy calm and serene as a summer sky and as pure you are the man the Moses raised up by God to deliver his modern Israel from bondage was the spontaneous feeling of my heart as I sat away back in the hall and listen to his mighty words mighty in truth mighty in their simple earnestness I not long been a reader of the liberator and listener to its editor before I got a clear apprehension of the principles of the anti-slavery movement I'd already the spirit of the movement and only needed to understand its principles and measures these I got from the liberator and from those who believed in that paper my acquaintance with the movement increased my hope for the ultimate freedom of my race and I united with it from a sense of delight as well as duty every week the liberator came and every week I made myself master of its contents all the anti-slavery meetings held in New Bedford I promptly attended my heart burning at every true utterance against the slave system and every rebuke of its friends and supporters thus past the first three years of my residence in New Bedford I had not then dreamed of the possibility of my becoming a public advocate of a cause so deeply embedded in my heart it was enough for me to listen to receive and applaud the great words of others and only whisper in private among the white laborers on the wharves and elsewhere the truths which burned in my breast end of chapter 22 chapter 23 of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass this LibriVox recording is in the public domain introduced to the abolitionists first speech at Nantucket much sensation extraordinary speech of Mr. Garrison author becomes a public lecturer 14 years experience youthful enthusiasm a brand new fact matter of the author's speech he could not follow the program his fugitive slave ship doubted to settle all doubt he writes his experience of slavery danger of recapture increased in the summer of 1841 a grand anti-slavery convention was held in Nantucket under the auspices of Mr. Garrison and his friends until now I had taken no holiday since my escape from slavery having worked very hard that spring and summer in Richmond's brass foundry sometimes working all night as well as all day and needing a day or two of rest I attended this convention never supposing that I should take part in the proceedings indeed I was not aware that anyone connected with the convention even so much as knew my name I was however quite mistaken Mr. William C. Coffin a prominent abolitionist in those days of trial had heard me speaking to my colored friends in the little school house on 2nd Street New Bedford where we worshiped he sought me out in the crowd and invited me to say a few words to the convention thus sought out and thus invited I was induced to speak out the feelings inspired by the occasion and the fresh recollection of the scenes through which I had passed as a slave my speech on this occasion is about the only one I ever made of which I do not remember a single connected sentence it was with the utmost difficulty that I could stand erect or that I could command and articulate two words without hesitation and stammering I trembled in every limb I'm not sure that my embarrassment was not the most effective part of my speech if speech it could be called at any rate this is about the only part of my performance that I now distinctly remember but excited and convulsed as I was the audience though remarkably quiet before became as much excited as myself Mr. Garrison followed me taking me as his text and now whether I had made an eloquent speech in behalf of freedom or not his was one never to be forgotten by those who heard it those who had heard Mr. Garrison oftenest and had known him longest were astonished it was an effort of unequal power sweeping down like a very tornado every opposing barrier whether of sentiment or opinion for a moment he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration often referred to but seldom attained in which a public meeting is transformed as it were into a single individuality the orator wielding a thousand heads and hearts at once and by the simple majesty of his all controlling thought converting his ears into the express image of his own soul that night there were at least one thousand Garrisonians in Nantucket at the close of this great meeting I was duly waited on by Mr. John A. Collins then the general agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and urgently solicited by him to become an agent of that society and to publicly advocate its anti-slavery principles I was reluctant to take the proffered position I had not been quite three years from slavery was honestly distrustful of my ability wish to be excused publicity exposed me to discovery and arrest by my master and other objections came up but Mr. Collins was not to be put off and I finally consented to go out for three months for I suppose that I should have got to the end of my story and my usefulness in that length of time here opened upon me a new life a life for which I had had no preparation I was a graduate from the peculiar institution Mr. Collins used to say when introducing me with my diploma written on my back the three years of my freedom had been spent in the hard school of adversity my hands had been furnished by nature with something like a solid leather coating and I had bravely marked out for myself a life of rough labor suited to the hardness of my hands as a means of supporting myself and rearing my children now what shall I say of this 14 years experience as a public advocate of the cause of my enslaved brothers and sisters the time is but as a speck yet large enough to justify a pause for retrospection and a pause it must only be young, ardent and hopeful I entered upon this new life in the full gush of unsuspecting enthusiasm the cause was good the men engaged in it were good the means to attain its triumph good heaven's blessing must attend all and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage my whole heart went with the holy cause and my most fervent prayer to the almighty disposer of the hearts of men were continually offered for its early triumph who or what thought I can withstand a cause so good so holy so indescribably glorious the God of Israel is with us the might of the internal is on our side now let but the truth be spoken and a nation will start forth at the sound in this enthusiastic spirit I dropped into the ranks of freedom's friends and went forth to the battle for a time I was made to forget that my skin was dark and my hair crisped for a time I regretted that I could not have shared the hardships and dangers endured by the earlier workers for the slaves release I soon however found that my enthusiasm had been extravagant that hardships and dangers were not yet passed and that the life now before me had shatters as well as sunbeams among the first duties assigned me on entering the ranks was to travel in company with Mr. George Foster to secure subscribers to the anti-slavery standard and the liberator with him I traveled and lectured through the eastern counties of Massachusetts much interest was awakened large meetings assembled many came no doubt from curiosity to hear what a Negro could say in his own cause I was generally introduced as a chattel, a thing a piece of southern property the chairman assuring the audience that it could speak fugitive slaves at that time were not so plentiful as now and as a fugitive slave lecturer I had the advantage of being a brand new fact the first one out up to that time a colored man was deemed a fool who confessed himself a runaway slave not only because of the danger to which he exposed himself of being retaken but because it was a confession of very low origin some of my colored friends in New Bedford thought very badly of my wisdom for thus exposing and degrading myself the only precaution I took at the beginning to prevent master Thomas from knowing where I was and what I was about was the withholding my former name my master's name and the name of the state and county from which I came during the first three or four months my speeches were almost exclusively made up of narrations of my own personal experience as a slave let us have the facts said the people so also said friend George Foster who always wished to pin me down to my simple narrative give us the facts said Collins we will take care of the philosophy just here arose some embarrassment it was impossible for me to repeat the same old story month after month and to keep up my interest in it it was new to the people it is true but it was an old story to me and to go through with it night after night was a task altogether to mechanical for my knowledge of nature tell your story Frederick would whisper my then revered friend William Lloyd Garrison as I stepped upon the platform I could not always obey for I was now reading and thinking new views of the subject were presented to my mind it did not entirely satisfy me to narrate wrongs I felt like denouncing them I could not always curb my moral indignation for the perpetrators of slave holding villainy long enough for a circumstantial statement of the facts which I felt almost everybody must know besides I was growing and needed room people won't believe you ever was a slave Frederick if you keep on this way said friend Foster be yourself said Collins and tell your story it was said to me better have a little of a plantation manner of speech than not it is not best that you seem to learn it these excellent friends were actuated by the best of motives and were not altogether wrong in their advice and still I must speak just the word that seemed to me the word to be spoken by me at last the apprehended trouble came people doubted if I had ever been a slave they said I did not talk like a slave look like a slave nor act like a slave and that they believed I had never been self of Mason and Dixon's line he don't tell us where he came from what his master's name was how he got away nor the story of his experience besides he is educated and is in this a contradiction of all the facts we have concerning the ignorance of the slaves thus I was in a pretty fair way to be denounced as an imposter the committee of the Massachusetts anti-slavery society knew all the facts in my case and agreed with me in the prudence of keeping them private they therefore never doubted my being a genuine fugitive but going down the aisles of the churches in which I spoke and hearing the free spoken Yankees saying repeatedly he's never been a slave I'll warrant she I resolved to dispel all doubt at no distant day by such a revelation of facts as could not be made by any other than a genuine fugitive in a little less than four years therefore after becoming a public lecturer I was induced to write out the leading facts connected with my experience in slavery giving names of persons, places and dates thus putting it in the power of any who doubted to ascertain the truth or falsehood of my story of being a fugitive slave this statement soon became known in Maryland and I had reason to believe that an effort would be made to recapture me it is not probable that any open attempt to secure me as a slave could have succeeded further than the obtainment by my master of the money value of my bones and sinews fortunately for me in the four years of my labors in the abolition cause I had gained many friends who would have suffered themselves to be taxed to almost any extent to save me from slavery it was felt that I had committed the double offense of running away and exposing the secrets and crimes of slavery and slave holders there was a double motive for seeking my re-enslavement avarice and vengeance and while as I have said there was little probability of successful recapture if attempted openly I was constantly in danger of being spirited away at a moment when my friends could render me no assistance in traveling about from place to place often alone I was much exposed to this sort of attack anyone cherishing the design to betray me could easily do so by simply tracing my whereabouts through the anti-slavery journals for my meetings and movements were promptly made known in advance my true friends Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips had no faith in the power of Massachusetts to protect me in my right to liberty public sentiment and the law in their opinion would hand me over to the tormentors Mr. Phillips especially considered me in danger and said when I showed him the manuscript of my story if in my place he would throw it into the fire thus the reader will observe the settling of one difficulty only opened the way for another and that though I had reached a free state and had attained a position for public usefulness I was still tormented with the liability of losing my liberty how this liability was dispelled will be related with other incidents in the next chapter end of chapter 23 chapter 24 of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass this Lieberbach's recording is in the public domain 21 months in Great Britain good arising out of unpropitious events denied cabin passage prescription turned to good account Hutchinson family the mob on board the Cambria happy introduction to the British public letter addressed to William Lloyd Garrison time and labors while abroad freedom purchased Mrs. Henry Richardson free papers abolitionists displeased with the ransom how the author's energies were directed reception speech in London character of the speech defended circumstances explained causes contributing to the success of his mission free Church of Scotland testimonial the allotments of Providence when coupled with trouble and anxiety often conceal from finite vision the wisdom and goodness in which they are sent and frequently what seemed to harsh and invidious dispensation is converted by after experience into a happy and beneficial arrangement thus the painful liability to be returned again to slavery which haunted me by day and troubled my dreams by night proved to be a necessary step in the path of knowledge and usefulness the writing of my pamphlet in the spring of 1845 endangered my liberty and led me to seek a refuge from Republican slavery in monarchical England a rude uncultivated fugitive slave was driven by stern necessity to that country to which young American gentlemen go to increase their stock of knowledge to seek pleasure to have their rough democratic manners softened by contact with English aristocratic refinement on applying for a passage to England on board the Cambria of the Cunard line my friend James N. Buffum of Lynn, Massachusetts was informed that I could not be received on board as a cabin passenger American prejudice against color triumphed over British liberality and civilization and erected a color test and condition for crossing the sea in the cabin of a British vessel the insult was keenly felt by my white friends but to me it was common, expected, and therefore a thing of no great consequence whether I went in the cabin or in the steerage moreover I felt that if I could not go into the first cabin first cabin passengers could come into the second cabin and the result justified my anticipations to the fullest extent indeed I soon found myself an object of more general interest than I wished to be and so far from being degraded that part of the ship became the scene of as much pleasure and refinement during the voyage as the cabin itself the Hutchinson family celebrated vocalists fellow passengers often came to my rude four castle deck and sung their sweetest songs and livening the place with eloquent music as well as spirited conversation during the voyage in two days after leaving Boston one part of the ship was about as free to me as another my fellow passengers not only visited me but also invited me to visit them on the saloon deck my visits there however were about seldom I preferred to live within my privileges and keep upon my own premises I found this quite as much in accordance with good policy as with my own feelings the effect was that with the majority of the passengers all color distinctions were flung to the winds and I found myself treated with every mark of respect from the beginning to the end of the voyage except in a single instance when I arrived for complying with an invitation given me by the passengers and the captain of the Cambria to deliver a lecture on slavery our New Orleans and Georgia passengers were pleased to regard my lecture as an insult offered to them and swore I should not speak they went so far as to threaten to throw me overboard and but for the firmness of captain Judkins probably would have under the inspiration of slavery and brandy attempted to put their attention to this scene although its tragic and comic peculiarities are well worth describing and then was put to the melee by the captain's calling the ship's company to put the saltwater mabo crats and irons at this determined order the gentleman of the lash scampered and for the rest of the voyage conducted themselves very decorously this incident of the voyage in two days after landing at Liverpool brought me at once before the British public snubbed in their meditated violence flew to the press to justify their conduct and to denounce me as a worthless and insolent negro this course was even less wise than the conduct it was intended to sustain for besides awakening something like a national interest in me and securing me an audience it brought out counter statements and threw the blame upon themselves which they had sought to fasten upon me and the gallant captain of the ship some notion may be formed a difference in my feelings and circumstances while abroad from the following extract from one of a series of letters addressed by me to Mr. Garrison and published in The Liberator it was written on the first day of January 1846 my dear friend Garrison up to this time I've given no direct expression of the views feelings and opinions which I have formed respecting the character and condition of the people of this land this experience has brought my opinions to an intelligent maturity I've been thus careful not because I think what I say will have much effect in shaping the opinions of the world but because whatever of influence I may possess whether little or much I wish it to go in the right direction and according to truth I hardly need say that in speaking of Ireland I shall be influenced by no prejudices in favor of America I think my circumstances all forbid that in the land and as a nation I belong to none I have no protection at home or resting place abroad the land of my birth welcomes me to her shores only as a slave and spurns with contempt the idea of treating me differently so that I am now cast from the society of my childhood and an outlaw in the land of my birth I'm a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were that men should be patriotic is to me perfectly natural but no further can I go if ever I had any patriotism or any capacity for the feeling it was whipped out of me long since by the lash of the American soul drivers in thinking of America I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky her grand old woods her fertile fields her beautiful rivers her mighty lakes and star crown mountains but my rapture is soon checked my joy is soon turned to mourning when I remember that all is cursed when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers the tears of my brethren are born to the ocean disregarded and forgotten and that our most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters I'm filled with unutterable loathing and led to reproach myself that anything could fall from my lips and praise of such a land America will not allow her children to love her she seems bent on compelling those who love her I will continue to pray labor and wait believing that she cannot always be insensible to the dictates of justice or death to the voice of humanity my opportunities for learning the character and condition of the people of this land have been very great I have traveled almost from the hill of health to the giants causeway and from the giants causeway to cave clear during these travels I have met and very much that has filled me with pain I will not in this letter attempt to give any description of those scenes which have given me pain this I will do hereafter I have enough and more than your subscribers will be disposed to read at one time of the bright side of the picture I can truly say I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country I seem to have undergone a transformation I live a new life the warm and generous cooperation extended to me by the friends the prompt and liberal manner with which the press has rendered me its aid the glorious enthusiasm with which thousands have flocked to hear the cruel wrongs of my downtrodden and long enslaved fellow countrymen portrayed the deep sympathy for the slave and the strong apparence of the slave holder everywhere evinced the cordiality with which members and ministers of various religious bodies and of various shades of religious opinions have embraced me and let me their aid the kind hospitality the spirit of freedom that seems to animate all with whom I come in contact and the entire absence of everything that looked like prejudice against me on account of the color of my skin contrasted so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States that I look with wonder and amazement on the transition in the southern part of the United States I was a slave thought of and spoken of as property in the language of the law, hell, taken, reputed and forced to be a chattel in the hands of my owners and possessors and their executors, administrators and assigns to all intense constructions and purposes whatsoever breath digest to 24 in the northern states a fugitive slave liable to be hunted at any moment like a felon and to be hurled into the terrible jaws of slavery doomed by an inveterate prejudice against color to insult and outrage on every hand Massachusetts out of the question denied the privileges and courtesies common to others in the use of the most humble means of conveyance shut out from the cabins on steamboats refused admission to respectable hotels caricatures, scorn, scoffed mocked and maltreated with impunity by anyone no matter how black his heart so he has a white skin but now behold the change 11 days and a half gone and I've crossed 3,000 miles of the perilous deep instead of a democratic government I'm under a monarchical government in America I'm covered with a soft gray fog of the Emerald Isle I breathe and loathe the chattel becomes a man I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity claim me as a slave or offer me an insult I employ a cab I'm seated beside white people I reach the hotel I enter the same door I'm shown into the same parlor I dine at the same table and no one is offended no delicate nose grows deformed in my presence I find no difficulty here in obtaining admission I take equal terms with people as white as any I ever saw in the United States I meet nothing to remind me of my complexion I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people when I go to church I met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me we don't allow niggers in here I remember about two years ago there was in Boston near the southwest corner of Boston Common I had long desire to see such a collection as I understood was being exhibited there never having had an opportunity while a slave I resolved to seize this my first since my escape I went and as I approached the entrance to gain admission I was met and told by the doorkeeper in a harsh and contemptuous tone we don't allow niggers in here I also remember attending a revival meeting in the Reverend Henry Jackson's meeting house at New Bedford and going up the broad aisle to find a seat I was met by a good deacon who told me in a pious tone we don't allow niggers in here soon after my arrival in New Bedford from the south I had a strong desire to attend the lyceum but was told they don't allow niggers in here while passing from New York to Boston on the steamer Massachusetts on the night of the 9th of December 1843 when children almost threw with the coat I went into the cabin to get a little warm I was soon touched upon the shoulder and told we don't allow niggers in here on arriving in Boston from an anti-slavery tour hungry and tired I went into an eating house near my friend Mr. Campbell's to get some refreshments I was met by a lad in a white apron we don't allow niggers in here a week or two before leaving the United States I had a meeting appointed at Weymouth the home of that glorious band of true abolitionists the Western family and others on attempting to take a seat in the omnibus to that place I was told by the driver and I never shall forget his fiendish hate I don't allow niggers in here thank heaven for the respite I now enjoy I had been in Dublin but a few days when a gentleman of great respectability kindly offered to conduct me through all the public buildings of that beautiful city and a little afterward I found myself dining with the Lord Mayor of Dublin what a pity there was not some American democratic Christian at the door of his splendid mansion to bark out at my approach they don't allow niggers in here the truth is the people here know nothing of the Republican Negro hate prevalent in our glorious land they measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual worth and not according to the color of their skin whatever may be said of the aristocracies here there is none based on the color of a man's skin this species of aristocracy belongs preeminently to the land of the free and the home of the brave I've never found it abroad in any but Americans it sticks to them wherever they go they find it almost as hard to get rid of as to get rid of their skins the second day after my arrival at Liverpool in company with my friend Buffam and several other friends I went to Eaton Hall the residence of the Marquis of Westminster one of the most splendid buildings in England on approaching the door I found several of our American passengers who came out with us in the Cambria waiting for admission as but one party was allowed in the house at a time we all had to wait till the company within came out the door was open to the public they looked at the spaces expressive chagrin those of the Americans were preeminent they looked as sour as vinegar and as bitter as gall when they found I was to be admitted on equal terms with themselves when the doors opened I walked in on an equal footing with my white fellow citizens from all I could see I had as much attention paid me by the servants that showed us through the house as any with a paler skin we don't allow niggers in here a happy new year to you and all the friends of freedom my time and labors while abroad were divided between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales upon this experience alone I might write a book twice the size of this my bondage and my freedom I visited and lectured in nearly all the large towns and cities in the United Kingdom and enjoyed many favorable opportunities for observation and information but books on England are abundant and the public may therefore dismiss meditating another inflection in that line though in truth I should like much to write a book on those countries if we're nothing else to make grateful mention of the many dear friends whose benevolent actions toward me are enough faceably stamped upon my memory and warmly treasured in my heart to these friends I owe my freedom in the United States on their own motion without any solicitation from me Mrs. Henry Richards and a clever lady remarkable for her devotion which is my freedom and actually paid it over and placed the papers of my many mission in my hands before they would tolerate the idea of my returning to this my native country to this commercial transaction I owe my exemption from the Democratic operation of the fugitive slave bill of 1850 but for this I might at any time become a victim of this most cruel and scandalous enactment and be doomed to end my life as I began as a slave when compromising anti-slavery friends in this country failed to see the wisdom of this arrangement and we're not pleased that I consented to it even by my silence they thought it a violation of anti-slavery principles conceding a right of property and man and a wasteful expenditure of money on the other hand viewing it simply in the light of a ransom whereas money extorted by a robber and my liberty is more valued than 150 pounds sterling I could not see either a violation of the laws of morality it is true I was not in the possession of my claimants and could have easily remained in England for the same friends who had so generously purchased my freedom would have assisted me in establishing myself in that country to this however I could not consent I felt that I had a duty to perform and that was to labor and suffer with the oppressed in my native land considering therefore all the circumstances the fugitive slave bill included I think the very best thing was done by Mr. Hugh had the 150 pounds sterling and leaving me free to return to my appropriate field of labor had I been a private person having no other relations or duties than those of a personal and family nature I should never have consented to the payment of so large a sum for the privilege of living securely under our glorious republican form of government I could have remained in England or have gone to some other country and perhaps I could even have lived as a notorious and with all quite as unpopular as notorious and I was therefore much exposed to arrest and recapture the main object which my labors in Great Britain were directed was the concentration of the moral and religious sentiment of its people against American slavery England is often charged with having established slavery in the United States and if there were no other justification than this for appealing to her people to lend their moral aid for the abolition of slavery were wholly extemporaneous and I may not always have been so guarded in my expressions as I otherwise should have been I was 10 years younger than now and only seven years from slavery I cannot give the reader a better idea of the nature of my discourses than by republishing one of them delivered in Finsbury Chapel London to an audience of about 2,000 persons and which was published in the London universe at the time those in the United States who may regard this speech as being harsh in its spirit and unjust in its statements because delivered before an audience supposed to be anti-Republican in their principles and feelings may view the matter differently when they learned that the case supposed did not exist it so happened that the great mass of the people in England who attended and patronized my anti-slavery meetings were in truth about as good Republicans as the mass of Americans and all men for black men as well as for white men they are the people who sympathized with Louis Cassatt and Mazini and with the oppressed and enslaved of every color nation the world over they constitute the democratic element in British politics and are as much opposed to the union of church and state as we in America are to such an union at the meeting where his speech was delivered Joseph Sturge a worldwide philanthropist and a member of the Society of Friends Alexander another friend who has spent more than an American fortune in promoting the anti-slavery cause in different sections of the world was on the platform and also Dr. Campbell now of the British banner who combines all the humane tenderness of melanchthon with the directness and boldness of Luther he is in the very front ranks of non-conformists and looks with no unfriendly eye upon America George Thompson too was there and America will yet own and bring out fire of true Republicanism in the American heart and be ashamed of the treatment he met at her hands coming generations in this country will applaud the spirit of this much abused Republican friend of freedom there were others of note seated on the platform who were gladly engraft upon English institutions all that is purely Republican in the institutions of America nothing therefore must be set down against this speech on the score that it was delivered in the presence of our system of government and with a view to stir up prejudice against Republican institutions again let it also be remembered for it is the simple truth that neither in this speech nor in any other which I delivered in England did I ever allow myself to address Englishmen as against Americans I took my stand on the high ground of human brotherhood and spoke to Englishmen as men and behalf of men slavery is a crime not against Englishmen but against God and family to seek his suppression in a letter to Mr. Greeley of the New York Tribune while abroad I said I'm nevertheless aware that the wisdom of exposing the sins of one nation in the ear of another has been seriously questioned by good and clear-sided people both on this and on your side of the Atlantic and the thought is not without weight on my own mind I'm satisfied that there are many evils which can be best removed by this. This however is by no means the case with the system of slavery it is such a giant sin such a monstrous aggregation of iniquity so hardening to the human heart so destructive to the moral sense and so well calculated to be get a character in everyone around it favorable to its own continuance that I feel not only at liberty but abundantly justified in appealing to the whole world to aid in its removal but even if I had as has been not confined my labor strictly within the limits of humanity and morality I should not have been without illustrious examples to support me driven into semi-exile by civil and barbarous laws by a system which cannot be thought of without a shutter I was fully justified in turning if possible the tide of the moral universe against the heaven daring outrage. Four circumstances greatly assisted me in getting the question of American slavery before the British War. I have already referred to which was a sort of national announcement of my arrival in England. Secondly, the highly reprehensible course pursued by the free church of Scotland in soliciting receiving and retaining money in its sustentation fund for supporting the gospel in Scotland which was evidently the ill-gotten gain of slaveholders and slave traders. Third, the great evangelical alliance or rather the attempt to form out in the slavery question about the same time there was the world's temperance convention where I had the misfortune to come in collision with sundry American doctors of divinity, Dr. Cox among the number with whom I had a small controversy. It has happened to me as it has happened to most of the men engaged in a good cause, often to be more indebted to my enemies than to my own skill or to the assistance of my friends for whatever success has attended my service. I was surprised to see that a person so illiterate and insignificant as myself could awaken an entrance so marked in England, these papers were not the only party's surprise. I was myself not barred behind them in surprise, but the very contempt and scorn, the systematic and extravagant disparagement of which I was the object served perhaps to magnify my few merits and to render me of some account of what I had been able to keep upon him, whether I was as much consequence as the English papers made me out to be or not, it was easily seen in England that I could not be the ignorant and worthless creature some of the American papers would have them believe I was. Men in their senses do not take bowie knives to kill mosquitoes nor pistols to shoot flies and the American passengers who thought proper to get up a mob to silence me on board the church. In this circumstance, namely the position of the free church of Scotland with the great doctors Chalmers, Cunningham and Candlish at its head, that church with its leaders put it out of the power of the Scotch people to ask the old question which we in the north have often most wickedly asked what have we to do with slavery. That church had taken the price of blood into its treasury with which to build free churches in the town of St. Bollion Bay. Now gone to his reward in heaven with William Smeal, Andrew Payton Frederick Card and other strolling anti-slavery men in Glasgow denounced the transaction as disgraceful and shocking to the religious sentiment of Scotland this church through its leading the vines instead of repenting and seeking to mend the mistake into which it had fallen made it a flagrant sin by undertaking to defend in the name of God in the Bible traffickers and human flesh. This the reader will see brought up the whole question of slavery and opened the way to its full discussion without any agency of mind. I've never seen a people more deeply moved than were the people of Scotland on this very question public meeting succeeded public meeting speech after speech pamphlet after pamphlet editorial after editorial sermon after sermon soon lashed the conscientious indignantly cried out from Greenock to Edinburgh and from Edinburgh to Aberdeen George Thompson of London Henry C. Wright of the United States James in Buffham of Lynn, Massachusetts and myself were on the anti-slavery site and doctors coming in and kindly on the other in a conflict where the letter could have been even the show of right the truth in our hands as against them must have been driven to the wall. And while I believe that the battle it must be confessed was a hard fought one Aberdeen defenders of the doctrine of fellow shipping slaveholders as Christians have not been met with in defending this doctrine it was necessary to deny that slavery is a sin if driven from this position they were compelled to deny that slaveholders were responsible for the sin and if driven from both these positions they must deny that it is a sin if driven from both these positions. Dr. Coney M. was the most powerful debater on the slavery side of the question. Mr. Thompson was the ablest on the anti-slavery side a scene occurred between these two men a parallel to which I think I never witnessed before and I know I never have since the scene was caused by a single exclamation on the part of Mr. Thompson the general assembly of the free church was in progress at that time and the doctors Coney M. and Candelich would speak that day in defense of the relations of the free church of Scotland to slavery in America. Messiers, Thompson Buffham and myself and a few anti-slavery friends attended but sat at such a distance and in such a position that perhaps we were not observed from the platform. The excitement was intense having been greatly increased by a series of meetings held by the general assembly. Send back the money stared at us from every street corner. Send back the money in large capitals adorn the broad flags of the pavement. Send back the money was the course of the popular street songs. Send back the money was the heading of leading editorials in the daily newspapers. This day at Cannon Mills the great doctors of the church were to give an answer to this loud and stern demand. Men of all parties and great speeches were expected from them. In addition to the outside pressure upon doctors coming in and Candelich there was wavering in their own ranks. The conscience of the church itself was not at ease. A dissatisfaction with the position of the church touching slavery was sensibly manifest among the members and something must be done to counteract this untoward influence. The great doctor Chalmers was in feeble health at the time. His most potent eloquence could render a thunder and dash down the granite walls of the established church of Scotland and to lead a host in solemn procession from it as from a doomed city was now old and enfeebled. Besides he had said his word on this very question and his word had not silenced the clamor without nor still the anxious heavings within. The occasion was momentous and felt to be so. The church was in a perilous condition. A change of some sort must take place in the middle of the church. It was impossible. The whole weight of the matter fell on Cunningham and Candlage. No shoulders in the church were broader than theirs and I must say badly as I detest the principles laid down and defended by them I was compelled to acknowledge the vast mental endowments of the men. Cunningham rose and his rising was the signal for almost tumultuous applause. You will say this was scarcely seen to me as it thundered up from the vast audience like the fall of an immense shat flung from shoulders already galled by its crushing weight. It was like saying doctor we have borne this burden long enough and willingly fling it upon you since it was you who brought it upon us. Take it now and do what you will with it for we are too weary to bear it. Doctor Cunningham proceeded with his speech abounding in logic, learning his arguments to a point and that point being that neither Jesus Christ nor his holy apostles regarded slave holding as a sin. George Thompson in a clear sonorous but rebuking voice broke the deep stillness of the audience exclaiming here, here, here. The effect of this simple and common exclamation is almost incredible. It was as if a granite wall had been suddenly flung up against the advancing current of a mighty river. It seemed appalled by the audacity as well as the fitness of the rebuke. A length of shout went up to the cry of put him out. Happily no one attempted to execute this cowardly order and the doctor proceeded with his discourse. Not however as before did the learned doctor proceed. The exclamation of Thompson must have reacquired itself a thousand times in his memory during the remainder of his speech for the doctor never recovered from the blow. In the early days of the Catholic Church the proud free church of Scotland were committed and the humility of repentance was absent. The free church held on to the blood stained money and continued to justify itself in its position and of course to apologize for slavery and as so till this day. She lost a glorious opportunity for giving her voice, her vote and her example to the cause of humanity and today she is staggering under the curse pursued by the free church and would hail as a relief from a deep and blinding shame the sending back the money to the slaveholders from whom it was gathered. One good result followed the conduct of the free church it furnished an occasion for making the people of Scotland. Thoroughly acquainted with the character of slavery and for arraying against the system the moral and religious sentiment of that country. Therefore while we were being justified by the good which really did result from our labors. Next comes the evangelical alliance this was an attempt to form a union of all evangelical Christians throughout the world. 60 or 70 American devines attended and some of them went there merely to weave a worldwide garment with which to clothe evangelical slaveholders. For most among these devines was the Reverend Samuel Hanson Cox moderator of the new school Presbyterian platform brought enough to hold American slaveholders and in this they partly succeeded but the question of slavery is too large a question to be finally disposed of even by the evangelical alliance. We appealed from the judgment of the alliance to the judgment of the people of Great Britain and with the happiest effect this controversy with the alliance might be made the subject of extended remark but I must forbear except to say that it was well improved by slavery discussion and that it was well improved. The fourth and last circumstance that assisted me in getting before the British public was an attempt on the part of certain doctors of divinity to silence me on the platform of the world's temperance convention here I was brought into point blank collision with Reverend Dr. Cox who made me the subject not only a bitter remark in the convention but also of a different subject. I replied to the doctor as well as I could and was successful in getting a respectful hearing before the British public who are by nature and practice lovers of fair play especially in a conflict between the weak and the strong. Thus did circumstances favor me and favor the cause of which I strove to be the advocate after such distinguished notice the public in both countries was compelled to do the attacks made upon me in the American newspapers by the aspersion cast upon me through the organs of the free church of Scotland. I became one of that class of men who for the moment at least have greatness forced upon them. People became the more anxious to hear for themselves and to judge for themselves of the truth which I had to unfold. While therefore it is by no means easy for a stranger to get barely before the British people in nearly two years and being about to return to America not as I left it a slave but a free man leading friends of the cause of emancipation in that country intimated their intention to make me a testimonial not only on grounds of personal regard to myself but also to the cause to which they were so ardently devoted. How far any such thing could have succeeded I do not know but many reasons let me to prefer that my friend should simply give me the interest of my enslaved and oppressed people. I told them that perhaps the greatest hindrance to the adoption of abolition principles by the people of the United States was the low estimate everywhere in that country placed upon the Negro as a man that because of his assumed natural inferiority people reconciled themselves to his enslavement and depression as things inevitable if not desirable. The grand thing to be done therefore was to remove the prejudice which depreciated and depressed them to prove them worthy of a higher consideration to disprove their alleged inferiority and demonstrate their capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and prejudice had assigned to them. I further stated that my judgment a tolerably well conducted press in the hands of persons of the despised race by calling out the mental energies of the race itself by making them acquainted with their own latent powers by developing their moral power by combining and reflecting their talents would prove the most powerful means of removing prejudice and of awakening an interest in them. I further informed them at the time the statement was true that there was not in the United States a single newspaper regularly published by the colored people that many attempts have been made to establish such papers but that up to that time they had all failed. So I gave them my paper. For this prompt and generous assistance rendered upon my bare suggestion without any personal efforts on my part I shall never cease to feel deeply grateful. And the thought of fulfilling the noble expectations of the dear friends who gave me this evidence of their confidence will never cease to be a motive for persevering exertion. Proposing to leave England and turning my face toward America in the spring of 1847 I was sent back to the United States and the United States which awaited me in my native land. For the first time in the many months spent abroad I was met with prescription on account of my color. A few weeks before departing from England while in London I was careful to purchase a ticket and secure a birth for returning home in the Cambria the steamer in which I left the United States paying therefore the round sum of dollars I spent in the London Times. This contemptible conduct met with stern rebuke from the British press upon the point of leaving England I took occasion to expose the disgusting tyranny in the columns of the London Times. That journal and other leading journals throughout the United Kingdom held up the outrage to unmitigated condemnation so good an opportunity for calling out a full expression of British criticism. I am happy to share with you the public journals assuring them of his regret at the outrage and promising that the like should never occur again on board his steamers and the like we believe has never since occurred on board the steamships of the Q and R line. It is not very pleasant to be made the subject of such insults but if all such necessarily resulted as this one did I should be very happy to be able to do it again even for a time as I was as a steam for the so hardly less severe than that which bites the flesh and draws the blood from the back of the plantation slave. It was rather hard after having enjoyed nearly two years of equal social privileges in England often dining with gentlemen of great literary social political and religious eminence never during the whole time having that with a single word look or gesture and to the saloon less my dark presence should be deemed an offense to some of my democratic fellow passengers the reader will easily imagine what must have been my feelings end of chapter 24