“BANISHMENT is but the change of place,” said Seneca, “and this blessing we owe to the Almighty Power— call it what you will—either God or an incorporeal Reason—a Divine Spirit or Fate, and the unchangeable course of causes and effects. It is, however, so ordered that nothing can be taken from us but what we can spare, and that which is most magnificent and valuable continues with us. Wherever we go, we have the heavens over our heads, and no farther from us than they were before; and so long as we can entertain our eyes and thoughts with these glories, what matters it what ground we tread?” This might be aptly applied to our race, who had no choice in their banishment from the Fatherland. The discovery of the West Indies by Columbus, and America by Cabot and Vespucci, drew the attention of Europe from domestic slumber to the New World, concerning the existence of which Europeans were, for the most part, sceptical. Not only a New World; but there was on the virgin soil a race of people who appeared to the Spaniards as an idle and improvident race, indifferent to most of the objects of human anxiety and comfort. Amid the region of the Vega the encircling seasons brought them its stores of fruit, when some were ripening on their boughs, crops were being gathered in their full maturity from the fields—some trees budding into new life, while others blossomed into bloom, giving promise of still succeeding abundance.

What need, then, were there for the childlike natives to garner up and anxiously provide for, coming days, when nature lavished their lands so abundantly? Theirs was a perpetual harvest. To men who lived in such abundance, what need of toiling, spinning, or labouring throughout the year, when neither nature nor custom prescribed the necessity of better clothing than the former herself supplied? Wherever the European went among these—children of the wood—it was a continual scene of festivities, and a constant stream of rejoicing; while the natives hastened from all parts to lay the treasures of their groves, streams, and mountains at the feet of beings whom they ignorantly thought had fallen from the skies to bring blessings to their country. We would that it were so; but the strangers betrayed their confidence, and proved themselves rather to have ascended from the abyss, bringing curses not blessings. As long as Isabella lived, the Indians found an efficient friend and protector; but “her death,” says the Venerable Las Casas, “was the signal for their destruction”. “Immediately on that event. . . Columbus, who seems to have had no doubt, from the first, of the Crown's absolute right of property over the natives, carried it to its full extent in the colonies. Every Spaniard, however humble, had his proportion of slaves; and men, many of them not only incapable of estimating the awful responsibility of the situation, but without the least touch of humanity in their natures, were individually entrusted with unlimited power, of the disposal of the lives and destinies of their fellow-creatures. They abused this trust in the grossest manner; tasking the unfortunate Indian far beyond his strength, inflicting the most refined punishments on the indolent and hunting down those who resisted or escaped like so many beasts of chase, with ferocious bloodhounds.

“Every step of the white man's progress in the New World may be said to have been on the corpse of a native. Faith is staggered by the recital of the number of victims immolated in these fair regions within a very few years after the discovery; and the heart sickens at the loathsome details of barbarities, recorded by one who, if his sympathies have led him sometimes to overcolour, can never be suspected of wilfully misstating facts of which he was an eye-witness.* On the northern coast of South America —Terra Firma, as it was called in contrast with the islands—when it had been explored, and before its virgin soil had been polluted by the touch of selfish and self-seeking plunderers, it occurred to the ardent imaginative mind of Las Casas that a colony might be founded, in which Spaniards might exercise a sort of paternal rule over the gentle natives, whose

* Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella.

YES, “Youth has its irreparable past,” but the misfortunes of youth were not self-imposed; it was the tyranny of slavery which loaded Walter Hawkins, as soon as he was born, with calamities, most of which he has never been able to overcome. While some only know misery by comparison with their own happiness, this man was made to experience it before he could understand what it meant. From his birth he was made to go under a dark, bleak rock—on a sunless shore—in company with those who could not explain why he was born to such a cruel fate. They could not even pity him, since they themselves were martyrs to the same heartless destiny. Himself and they might have felt that there was a thing called happiness by people whom they had seen laughing, or singing those sacred songs which he would one day learn: that was the only cup of consolation they had to drink from. But as years rolled on, and the slave-driver compelled him to speak in subdued tones, it was then the child began to comprehend the mystery of the sunless path—which afterwards made him incapable of being in love with his fate. What he would have been if he had not been born, nursed, and spent his early days in bondage we cannot tell; this we will venture to say from what we shall learn from his life —there was the making of a man worthy of any race in the slave child.

Bishop Walter Hawkins was born at Georgetown, Maryland, in the district of Columbia, in or about the year 1809, at a time when the United States no less than Great Britain were beginning to be stirred from centre to circumference with the anti-slavery agitation. His father and mother were both pure-blooded Negroes, whose ancestors were among the millions that were stolen from the bosom of their fatherland to supply the labour market of America. They were both slaves at the time of the birth of their son Walter. At the age of forty his father was encouraged by the Quakers —whom we have said were the first to free their slaves in the United States—to work overtime after he had fulfilled his long day's work for his master. In this way the poor man managed to save the sum of 365 dollars (£73 4s. 2d.), with which he purchased his liberty. Heaven only knows what the slaves would have had to go through, but for the humanity and practical sympathy of those unostentatious Christians. Bishop Hawkins does not seem to remember much about his mother, for she died when he was quite young. Although the children lost much by her death, it certainly was great gain to this mother, who dared not call the children of her anguish her own. What a glorious emancipation was hers! Better far is thy lot to be numbered with the dead than to have lived to be hunted down by bloodhounds or whipped by ex-convicts. What a glorious transformation is thine! Thy death was a far better thing than the insults of bullies more degraded than thyself. Was thy death not preferred, than to live to see thy loved ones torn one by one from thy heart, and sent off in the chain-gang never to see them in the flesh any more, or, what is worse, to see and not to know that they were verily part and parcel of thyself?

Out of a large family, the Bishop can only remember two brothers and two sisters. Who knows but that before Walter was born the others were carried into the south, from whence it was believed that neither the living nor dead ever returned to relate the horrors of the life of a slave in yonder region? The eldest of the two sisters died, while the eldest brother, determined no longer to serve his master, ran away; we hope he was never recaptured. The Bishop, one sister, and a younger brother—who fell down a flight of stairs, in consequence of which he became a cripple for the rest of his life—was all the family left to Hawkins the elder. The cripple was given as a present to the old man, but he did not enjoy the present of his own son for long, for he followed his mother into the eternal world. Listen to the heartless language of this descendant of a convict: “Old man, you can have him; he is of no use to me”. Nevertheless the man was glad to have one free child, though he be a cripple. At the death of the master the remaining two children became the property of widow Jane Robinson, the sister of one Robert Beverly, a rich squire, who always supplied her with all the necessaries of life, as she was what they called very poor. And a most eccentric creature was this Jane Robinson. Following the custom and spirit of the age, she professed the popular religion. She used to teach young Hawkins to lie on her behalf, but would have him whipped if he did so on his own responsibility, or threaten him with being “cast into a lake of fire and brimstone”; not her religious belief, but the effect of slavery on the slave-holder made them so inconsistent as to say to the slave boy: “If there is a knock, put on a clean white apron, and go to the door, open it, and if it is Mrs. Thomas Bell or Mrs. Frank Keys tell her I am gone out”. Evidently old Jane believed that there must have been some virtue in a “clean white apron”; perhaps it served to cover a multitude of sins. Not content with putting this lie into the boy's mouth, she would stand off where she could hear him tell the lie, and having satisfied herself that the lad had done his duty well, i.e.,according to her moral standard, she would laugh with delight, like a daughter of an ex-convict, at the exploits of her illustrious father's dashing acts of villainy. Having done this, old Jane would say: “Go to your work (not with a clean white apron) in ten minutes”. When she thought that he was there she would go and look around and say, pushing the soil with her foot: “Are you cutting the weeds all right, John?” If he replied in the affirmative, when he was not strictly accurate, old Jane Robinson would say, by way of exhortation: “John, you must not lie. Don't you know that all liars are cast into the lake that burns for ever?” How was he to know? and if there were such a place ought not old Jane to have the warmest corner? Who is to be blamed if this boy grew up to be a hardened liar? If it were just for him to lie for his mistress without fear of being “cast into the lake that burns for ever,” why not do it for himself? Slavery was a bad—not to say a hard—schoolmaster for the Negro; moreover it was fruitful in respect of raising a race of men who were at once semi-barbarous, immoral and degraded physically as well as mentally. The Bishop says: “Jane Robinson always had her prayers in her private room three times a-day”; and he could often hear her say: “O Lord, have mercy upon the poor Africans!” and groaned as if her soul was really troubled about them. But what avails prayers and groans when she, like so many other slave-holders, persisted in degrading the African? Yet these prayers and groans constituted the religion of the pious Christians of Negro-driving America. Their ministers were their paid puppets, who taught the slaves from the pulpit that they must obey their masters and mistresses in all things. These men of God did not think or feel that it was beneath the dignity of their vocation to tell the Negroes “that some He made masters and mistresses for taking care of their children and others belonging to them. . . others He hath made slaves and servants to assist and work for their masters and mistresses that provide for them, and some others He hath made ministers and teachers to instruct the rest, to show them what they ought to do, and put them in mind of their several duties”. God called them, but the devil shook the bag.

The Right Rev. Bishop Meade of Virginia, in an address to slaves, said: “Almighty God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing but labour and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is His will that it should be so. Your bodies, you know, are not your own: they are at the disposal of those you belong to.” And others of these paid “liars for God” published a catechism for slaves, in which they had the impudence to ask and answer the following questions: “Is it right for a servant to run away, and is it right to harbour a runaway?—No. What did the Apostle Paul do to Onesimus, who was a runaway? Did he harbour him or send him back to his master? Answer—He sent him back to his master with a letter.” Yes, and this minister ought to have added: “Receive him not as a servant but above a servant, a brother in Christ”. Of course the puppet was paid to keep the last clause out—nay, more, the slave was even taught that “to disobey his master was to yield to the temptation of the devil”. Bishop Hawkins tells us of one Parson Baulch, who was accustomed to preach once a month in the Presbyterian Church, in the neighbourhood in which he lived, to the slaves. This venerable old man used to take the same text, and preached the same sermon for twenty years, as testified by his father and grandfather, to which they were bound to listen, under pains of being whipped. The text was: “Servants, obey your masters,” and the substance of the sermon was: “Sam and Sukey, you must mind all you are told to do by your masters, and obey. You must not steal from them. Should they lose a pin, and you find it, you must give it to them. You must not lie, and you must not run away from them.” While thus speaking, he would put his finger on the supposed text in the open Bible, and, looking in the gallery where all the slaves were allowed to sit, would continue his apology for a sermon by saying: “The Lord says (I suppose the lord of mammon), if you are good to your masters and mistresses, He has got a kitchen in heaven, and you all will go there by-and-by”. What if Parson Baulch is in that kitchen now? A more hateful caricature of a sermon cannot be conceived than this wretched mutilation of the righteous character of God. In every denomination were found men of Parson Baulch's stamp, except the Quakers and a few laymen who protested against this libel on the Deity. But many of the slave-holders would carry it away and repeat it (parrot-like) to the poor slaves. Poor Jane Robinson had been pretty well off during some portion of her husband's life, but, unfortunately for her and her slaves, he ran through his money by drinking and gambling, two offsprings of slavery, and at last he died from the effects of his riotous living, leaving old Jane, a son and a daughter in possession of five slaves as their fortune, which was considered very little to live upon; consequently she became very stingy in her fare. If she put herself upon a smaller fare, it was certainly a bad look-out for the stomachs of her five Negroes, who were soon after made to feel as if their throats were cut. Inasmuch as her rich brother Beverly came to her assistance and relieved her wants, she continued to buy the cheapest meal and bread she could find for her slaves. It was a part of the policy of many of the slave-holders not to feed the Negro too highly, and with that fear they gave him too little. Just as they maintained that “if the slave were not allowed to read the Bible” he would remain an intellectual infant, whom they could bend at will, but if they were allowed to read it the game was up, so they feared that by the perusal of such a book the slave “would be converted not into a Christian, but a demon,” i.e.,he could no longer be kept in subjection. Old Jane Robinson did with the food exactly what a thousand masters and mistresses did with both food and religion, viz., diluted and adulterated them in quantity and quality to suit the peculiar institution in which millions of human beings were kept as chattels. The pinch of hunger made the young man yearn for liberty.

ALTHOUGH Spence deplored slavery as a lamentable evil and regarded it as a great human wrong, and said that it was a degradation to the blacks, an injury to the master, and a detriment to society at large, yet he tried to justify the system by saying that “the Negroes had at all times abundant food; the sufferings of fireless winter were unknown to them; medical attendance was always at command; in old age there was no fear of workhouse; their children were never a burden or care; and their labour, though long, was neither difficult nor unhealthy”. Given that this is absolutely true, we maintain that the system was iniquitous, inasmuch as “it ignored the essential characteristic of the man—the existence”. In the words of Sallust: “Of two natures, the one is common to us with the gods, the other with the beasts”. Undoubtedly, slavery sought to obliterate the more vital, and verily denied the nobler, of these two natures. What is the use of an abundance of everything when one is deprived of his liberty? Nor is the crime of keeping a man a slave minimised by talking about “the amount of degradation resulting from any cause must be limited by the height from whence there was room to fall,” for surely it is a come down for any man, however ignorant—though free—to be torn from his home by force and fraud, and transported like a convict into servitude for an indefinite period: a condition where every precaution was adopted to prevent intellectual improvement. Granted that the intellectual condition of the slave had not fallen from a height equal to that of the race in the home to which he was transported, was slavery calculated to raise him above the condition of his savage life? Mr. Spence answers: “Yes, a positive gain”; we say: “Prove your assertion”. He answers: “Their conversation and domestic habits are cheerful, they are fond of singing and dancing of a very energetic description; visitors to the Southern States constantly express their surprise at the drollery and gaiety they meet with”. A slave had no domestic life; singing and dancing were the opiates with which the poor wretches drowned their sorrows. It is a characteristic of the Negro to be—or rather to profess to be—as happy as he can under the condition he is in, which you, Mr. Spence, and too many others, mistook for real contentment. In the happiest moment of their life, there arose in some an irrepressible desire for freedom which no danger or power could restrain, no hardship deterred, and no bloodhound could alarm. This desire haunted them night and day; they talked about it to each other in confidence; they knew that the system which bound them was as unjust as it was cruel, and that they ought to strive, as a duty to themselves and their children, to escape from it, as the slaves in Jamaica tried to do in 1732, unknown to them, and later as their neighbours in St. Domingo succeeded in doing: and such was the state of mind beneath all their singing and dancing that, had they means as they had desire, there would have been no slave-holder to talk about the happiness of his slaves. To enslave men successfully and safely it was necessary to keep their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they were deprived. Thus masters gave the slaves some holidays, which served the purpose of keeping their minds occupied with prospective pleasures within the limits of slavery. It was during these holidays that the young man could go wooing; the married man went to see his wife; the father and mother to see their children; the industrious and money-making could earn a few dollars: it was then that the strong tried their strength at wrestling or boxing; then the drinker drank plenty of whisky, and the religious spent their time in praying, preaching, singing and exhorting. Before these holidays their pleasures were in prospect, after they were pleasures of reflection; but for these holidays, which acted as safety-valves, the rigours of bondage would have been carried off by the explosive elements produced in the minds of the slaves by the injustice and fraud of slavery. In his savage state the Negro was at liberty to eat what he liked and could get by his own activity, but as a slave he was forced to have “Johnny cakes” and black treacle, with rare variation. This cake was made out of corn-meal, salt, and water, and baked on a piece of barrel-head. At dinner-time old Jane Robinson would call her slaves and give each of them a piece and a little molasses, which she would pour into a large plate so as to make it look much more than it really was; of course there was no blessing asked on this meal. The necessary preliminary having been gone through, Walter would receive his allowance with all the humility of one who had received a knighthood from his Queen. It is needless to say that he soon polished off the “Johnny cake,” licked the treacle and bowed ready for more, to which Mrs. Robinson would gravely reply: “You young rascal, do you mean to breed a famine? Go to your work!” Can anyone wonder at slaves singing:—

No wonder that Sydney Smith said: “No virtuous man ought to trust his character, or the character of his children, to the demoralising effects produced by commanding slaves. Justice, gentleness, pity and humanity soon give way before them; conscience suspends its functions. The love of command, the maintenance of restraints, get the better of every other feeling, and cruelty has no other limit than fear.” Think what the feelings of this young Negro must have been in his hiding-place, as all the horrors of a slave-gang stared him in the face. Trembling, but never dreading his danger, he crept out one night, and hastened to tell his poor father and sister that he was still on the best side of the chain-gang. The moment he opened the door, his step-mother told him to go out, for the hunters had been there several times a-day with the bloodhounds to hunt him down. The poor fellow begged to see his father, but the woman, knowing and fearing the penalty of his being seen there, insisted on his leaving the house, and that right away; so he obeyed and stepped out of the door. Just as he did so, one of the two-legged bloodhounds who were looking for him entered the gate. While he hesitated to see whether Walter was his prize, the lad bolted like a shot out of a cannon. Kind fate had interposed, for the constable had not his dogs with him that time, or he would have captured his man. It was little use the fellow giving chase to a young man running for his life and liberty, for Walter soon left him out of sight and sound, and back he went to his hiding-place at his friend Robert's, where he arrived with the perspiration dripping from his face, while his whole body was trembling with fear. Robert not being in on his arrival, Walter sat down to recover himself, and he no sooner gathered himself together than Robert walked in, and wanted to know what was the matter. “Why,” said Walter, “I had a narrow escape of being caught by the constable.” “Then,” replied Robert, “you must go from here now; you can't stay any longer”; for he knew that if the two-legged bloodhound had kept up the chase he would be sure to make enquiry there, and, if found, he would be severely punished for harbouring a runaway. “I can't,” said Walter, “as I don't know where to go, and I have no money to get food with.” The good friend put his hand in his pocket and took out a five-dollar note, saying: “This will take you to a free country”. Then arose another difficulty, viz., the passport, in the shape of free papers, that he might show when he went for his railway ticket. So Walter said: “I have no free papers, and I don't know any way to get them. I have not even any white to be my friend to say I am free.” To be sure, no white man in that part of the country would tell a lie or disgrace himself by helping a Negro to make good his escape. So why dream about it? “Now is your chance to make the best of a bad job,” said Robert. While they were thus discussing, another freed man came in, not knowing that Walter had taken refuge there: so that Walter had to tell him his troubles, and how he had escaped the constable. “Why,” said the fellow, “the hounds have just gone by; 'tis a wonder they did not stop here and ask or search for you. Here is five dollars; it will take you where you want to go.” Yet neither he nor Robert could tell the runaway the exact route he was to take. “Anyhow,” said they, “go, and we will pray for you if you will pray for yourself.” Blessed encouragement! Well might Tennyson make Edith say:—

Why should not these two Negroes pray for their Friend who was suffocating in bondage, and now seeks to breathe fresh air? “What an asylum hath the troubled soul in prayer.” In the awful solitude of night, in the yearnings of the soul for freedom from physical or moral bondage, and in the thrill of sacred emotions which stirs our inmost soul, there is consolation in prayer. Now, if the slave-holder prays to God, why should not the slave pray? Surely if the Deity loves justice and abounds in compassion He might help the poor Negro.

Robert discussed the route to the free country with both his friends, and gave Walter what hints he could, and bade the runaway “Godspeed”.

Having taken leave of Robert, Walter and his other freed friend started and arrived at the house of the latter in perfect safety. Here he stayed from Friday night until Monday morning. When the day dawned, and ere the monarch of the day began to scale the horizon, Walter was up and made for the depôt (railway-station), where he found crowds of people, both white and black, taking their tickets for Baltimore— the whites were being served first. Our runaway stood aside until everyone had been served, and then he stepped boldly to the wicket door to get his, when he was saluted by the ticket-seller with “Good-morning,” quite a coincidence, as blacks were always expected to salute first. Having returned the compliment, he asked for a ticket. “Where are you going?” was the next query, asked in a short, sharp tone (as if to throw him off his guard), although very good-naturedly. “Baltimore,” was the ready reply, with the complimentary, “sir”. According to custom he ought to have asked Hawkins for his papers, but the quick reply, spoken in a confidential tone, brought the ticket, and Walter handed him the money. The booking-clerk went on writing, and the other made his way to the railway carriage, took his seat in a dirty one, in which only Negroes were made to travel. Not many minutes after the train started off, having in the same compartment a few Negroes, but fearing lest they should speak to him, and therefore the more readily recognise that he was a runaway, or cross-question him in a manner that might lead him to betray himself, Hawkins played the fool by whittling some pieces of wood which he had picked up about the station, and, taking some strings out of his pockets, and a piece of paper, made and unmade a parcel until he arrived at Baltimore. Here he got out.

Being hungry, he asked a boy to show him a place where he could get some food, who directed him to a basement which was used as an eating-house. While going down the steps a fine-looking man met him face to face. “Good-morning,” said he to Walter, with a knowing sort of look, which aroused the suspicion of the runaway. Keeping his wits about him, he continued down and asked the price of a meal, when he was told it would be twenty-five cents. In this place he happened to see his own likeness on a bill which he thought contained a reward for his capture. At once he thought that the man who had spoken to him was not his friend, but one who was looking out for runaways. So he put on a bold front, gave the man twenty-five cents, and asked him to keep the food warm for him. If the man is still keeping that eating-house, he may be keeping the food warm yet, for, instead of returning, he took to his heels, leaving both the food and the man behind him. When he got out of sight he asked another boy—he was afraid to address an adult—to tell him the name of the nearest free State, and where he could get a car that could take him there. “Look!” said the little fellow, “there they are, and they will be going soon!” We ought to tell the reader that Baltimore was one of the centres of the anti-slavery movement, and it was in that city that Benjamin Lundy, the John the Baptist of the new era, established an anti-slavery journal, The Genius of Universal Emancipation,in 1821, and laboured until 1831, at which time he wrote: “I have, within the period above-named (ten years), sacrificed thousands of dollars of my own earnings. I have travelled upwards of five thousand miles on foot, and more than twenty thousand miles in other ways; have visited nineteen States of this union, and held more than two hundred public meetings; have performed two voyages to the West Indies, by which means the emancipation of a considerable number of slaves has been effected, and the way paved for the enfranchisement of many more.” It was in this same city that Dr. Buchanan delivered an oration in 1731 upon the “Moral and Political Evil of Slavery”. What would Walter Hawkins have given if he had only known that there were such men at Baltimore as Quaker Lundy? It was not to be, so he made his way to the depôt; when he got there he found a crowd similar to what he met at the first railway station. Instead of waiting, as he had done before, he pressed forward, only to be cursed and sworn at by the booking-clerk, to stand by while the white people got served; but there was danger in that, as he might have been seen by the man, who would certainly not lose sight of him again. So with all the cheek imaginable he pushed his way within the barrier. When the fellow demanded to see his free papers, without any hesitation he pulled out the bundles which he had made of whittled wood, etc., in the train on his way from Haverdegrass to Baltimore. But by another happy coincidence for him the ticket-seller did not ask him to open it, but simply gave him a ticket. Without further ceremony he made his way to the proverbial black people's car, and soon the train steamed out. No sooner had he made himself comfortable than they crossed a river which made him think that he was being taken back to Washington, but it was a false alarm, because he was only crossing into the State of Delaware, famous for being one of the first States where the Quakers began to emancipate their slaves, and about this time Delaware had only about three thousand slaves. There they stopped, but Walter did not get out, and happily no one came to look for him while the train was in the station. Off she started again, but it was a long time before the train stopped again; whatever station this was he did not know nor did he ask, for he was as much afraid to trust a Negro as a white man, nor would he get out to procure some food, as he had had enough experience at Baltimore, the shock of which he had not yet quite recovered from; indeed, quietude and hunger were preferred to a full stomach and slavery, therefore he kept his seat, and made himself as happy as possible under the circumstances. At last the train ran into Wilmington: he did not offer to move for the next three-quarters of an hour, a terrible long time for him (minutes were as long as days to him): it was as though someone was waiting to lay hold of him. “Oh, what must I do? Shall I enquire of someone when the train is going to start and where she is going?” Neither the grandeur of the city nor the beautiful scenery around had any charm for the runaway; everyone who passed the railway carriage appeared to him like a ghost. While he was thus agitated a man entered the carriage in which he sat and began making signs and all sorts of unintelligible sounds, but neither the one nor the other could draw the badger. “You may shout, old fellow,” thought he, “but you will have to talk before I get out of this car”; but the poor man was deaf and dumb, and what he wanted Walter does not know until this day. In the meantime the engine came up and hitched on to the carriage, but, just before starting, two Negresses stepped into the compartment in which he was sitting, for although they were well-dressed and nearly white they had to take their seat in the same filthy carriage in which the other black people travelled, whether slaves or freed men. The whistle blew and the train started; it was no sooner out of the station than they sat one on either side of Walter, the runaway, and addressed him with a “good-afternoon,” to which he replied: “Good-afternoon, ladies, are you travelling any distance?” “Yes,” was the reply. My word, what a change had come over him! How soon he broke the seal from his lips! What a contrast between these and the other people who had bidden him the time of day! “Are you running away?” was the next poser they put to him. “I have sold myself at last,” thought he. If he had kept up his reticence all might have been well, but an answer was expected. “What shall I say? Shall I tell a lie? Can I play the same trick as I played upon the two booking-clerks I left behind me?” These were the thoughts which rushed uppermost in his mind. “If I tell a lie and escape, it will be better than to tell the truth and be recaptured.” So he answered: “No, I am not”. Of course, hesitation to answer made the damsels ask more questions. “Have you ever travelled any before?” which produced further embarrassment. As he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, he answered: “Yes”. Still these ladies were not satisfied, so they had to further cross-examine him. “Were are you going?” Having overcome his difficulty, as he thought, he most readily replied: “To Philadelphia”. Still they pressed him with another query: “Have you ever been there?” Although he had not, he found no difficulty in saying “Yes”. But the ladies, who professed they were seeking for information, demanded of him to tell them what sort of a place the city of William Penn was. To which our friend confidentially replied: “Well, ladies, it is a fine place, filled with great big brick houses,” at which they laughed heartily, for they belonged to the place. Knowing he was the man for whom they were looking, they replied: “We live in Philadelphia, and have seen the bills advertising for you, and we are sent by friends to find you before they take you back to the South. Are you hungry?” Hunger was not the name to express his condition, for he could have eaten a donkey and given chase to the rider. The news sounded too good to be true; nevertheless he answered: “Yes”. Then they opened one of their baskets which contained all sorts of dainties, and told him to help himself, which he most assuredly did, for he ate and ate until he felt uncomfortable about the buttons. After a chat poor Walter Hawkins fell asleep, a thing he would not have done if he had had no confidence in the integrity of the ladies. He slept the rest of the journey, and never woke until one of them said: “We are in Philadelphia”. The poor fellow awoke to find that he had been resting his weary head upon the lap of one of these angels of peace. On opening his eyes he caught sight of the lovely black eyes of the damsel looking at him with so much sweetness and compassion that, to use his own words: “I did not want to get up”; moreover, it was the most comfortable pillow he ever had in his life. When he got up she said: “You are free now”—a statement which he could not believe though he had undergone so much trouble to obtain it, but his friends reassured him that he was really free; and, having given him some instructions about his movements in the city, they got out of the carriage while he stood overwhelmed with astonishment. At last the ladies bade him farewell.

Philadelphia has the honour of being the city in which the convention to frame the Federal Constitution met on the 25th of May, 1787, when the illustrious George Washington was chosen president, and it was there, on the 8th of August of the same year, that Governor Morris of Pennsylvania made his famous speech, which ran as follows: “I never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspreads the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other slave States. Travel through the whole continent and you will see the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the Eastern States and enter New York the effects of the institution become visible. Passing to the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slavery present a desert, increasing with the increasing proportion of this wretchedness. Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens and let them vote. Are they property? Why, there is no other property included! It comes to this, that the inhabitants of Georgia and South Carolina who go to the coast of Africa, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tear away their fellow creatures from their dearest connections and damn them to the most cruel bondage.” This powerful speech was followed by others, but we have not room to quote them. In 1794 we find that an anti-slavery convention was held in Philadelphia, in which nearly all the Abolition Societies of the States were represented, and at which a memorial was drawn up and addressed to Congress, praying it to do what it could to suppress the slave traffic. In 1795 another meeting was held in the city, when the Act of Congress was read: “An act to prohibit the carrying out of the slave trade from the United States to any foreign place or country”. And, finally, it was in the city of Philadelphia that certain Negro citizens met in 1800 and drew up and presented a memorial to Congress calling attention to the slave trade between the United States and the coast of Guinea.

AT the time when Walter Hawkins arrived in Philadelphia it was called a free city and county; yet the young ladies, who gave him the information that he was free, dared not be seen with him after they had left the train, so that he had to do the best he could. He was told that there were always kidnappers hanging about on the look-out for runaway slaves, through whom he might be taken back to the dark South. While groping about the city, he met a lad whom he thought he could trust, and asked him if he knew the whereabouts of one Walter Proctor. “Yes!” said the lad. “Show me where he lives,” said the runaway, “and I'll pay you”—not that he had more money than wit. With that offer the little fellow willingly led him quite a distance from where he was standing