<emph>Uncle Tom's Companions: Or, Facts Stranger Than Fiction. A Supplement to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Being Startling Incidents in the Lives of Celebrated Fugitive Slaves:</emph> Electronic Edition.

]> <emph>Uncle Tom's Companions: Or, Facts Stranger Than Fiction. A Supplement to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Being Startling Incidents in the Lives of Celebrated Fugitive Slaves:</emph> Electronic Edition. Edwards, John Passmore, 1823-1911 Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895 Funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities supported the electronic publication of this title. Text transcribed by Apex Data Services, Inc. Image scanned by Ingrid Pohl Text encoded by Apex Data Services, Inc., LeeAnn Morawski and Natalia Smith First edition, 2001 ca. 600K Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001.

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Uncle Tom's Companions: Or, Facts Stranger Than Fiction. A Supplement to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Being Startling Incidents in the Lives of Celebrated Fugitive Slaves. J. Passmore Edwards xi, 13- 222 p., ill. LONDON: EDWARDS AND CO., 2, HORSESHOE COURT LUDGATE-HILL. MDCCCLII. This electronic edition has been transcribed from a microfiche supplied by North Carolina State University Libraries.

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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998 English African Americans -- Biography. Fugitive slaves -- United States -- Biography. Slavery -- United States -- History -- 19th century. Slaves -- United States -- Biography. Slaves -- United States -- Social conditions. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896. Uncle Tom's cabin. 2001-09-25, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic edition. 2001-05-28, Natalia Smith, project manager, finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing. 2001-03-29, Lee Ann Morawski finished TEI/SGML encoding 2001-03-22, Apex Data Services, Inc. finished transcribing the text.

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UNCLE TOM'S COMPANIONS: OR, FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. A SUPPLEMENT TO Uncle Tom's Cabin: BEING STARTLING INCIDENTS IN THE LIVES OF CELEBRATED FUGITIVE SLAVES. BY J. PASSMORE EDWARDS, Editor of “The Biographical Magazine. LONDON: EDWARDS AND CO., 2, HORSESHOE COURT LUDGATE-HILL. MDCCCLII. T. C. JOHNS, PRINTER, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street. PREFACE.

IF ever a nation were taken by storm by a book, England has recently been stormed by “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” It is scarcely three months since this book was first introduced to the British Reader, and it is certain that at least 1,000,000 copies of it have been printed and sold. The unexampled success of “Uncle Tom's Cabin” will ever be recorded as an extraordinary literary phenomena. Nothing of the kind, or anything approaching to it, was ever before witnessed in any age or in any country. A new fact has been contributed to the history of literature—such a fact, never before equalled, may never be surpassed. The pre-eminent success of the work in America, before it was reprinted in this country, was truly astonishing. All at once, as if by magic, everybody was either reading, or waiting to read, “the story of the age,” and “a hundred thousand families were every day either moved to laughter, or bathed in tears,” by its perusal.

This book is not more remarkable for its poetry and its pathos, its artistic delineation of character and development of plot, than for its highly instructive power. A great moral idea runs beautifully through the whole story. One of the greatest evils of the world—slavery—is stripped of its disguises, and presented in all its naked and revolting hideousness to the reading world. And that Christianity, which consists not in professions and appearances, but in vital and vitalising action, is exhibited in all-subduing beauty and tenderness in every page of the work. If ever a book had a mission, that book is “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” Its mission is to attract all readers to it by virtue of its many charms, and after attracting them, warm them with an enthusiasm, and fill them with a love of Humanity—and unmistakably and admirably has this mission so far been fulfilled. And it will continue to be fulfilled as the years pass away, and the empire of Injustice gradually crumbles before the advancing tide of a Christianised Civilisation. “Uncle Tom's Cabin” will not only be read by Englishmen, and those who talk the English language, all the world over, but it will be translated into all the principal languages of Europe, and become a household book for ages.

This book, as it is now well known, depicts with graphic force Negro life in the United States. That it does this with as much truth as vigour, will be seen by a perusal of “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” But as the truthfulness of the delineations of Mrs. Stowe's book has been called into question, and the inferences drawn therefrom disputed by the Times newspaper, and other authorities, such a book as “UNCLE TOM'S COMPANIONS” was demanded. It has been said that “Uncle Tom's Cabin” is an exaggeration, that it misrepresents Slavery and Slaveholders, and that its influence must be prejudicial in riveting more closely the chains of the poor slave, and protracting the hour of his emancipation.

The Times, in speaking of Mrs. Stowe and her book, says—“That she will convince the world of the purity of her own motives, and of the hatefulness of the sin she denounces is equally clear; but that she will help in the slightest degree towards the removal of the gigantic evil that afflicts her soul, is a point upon which we may express the greatest doubt; nay, is a matter upon which, unfortunately, we have very little doubt at all, inasmuch as we are certain that the very readiest way to rivet the fetters of slavery in these critical times, is to direct against all slaveholders in America, the opprobrium and indignation which such works as ‘Uncle Tom's Cabin’ are sure to excite. . . . . The gravest fault of the book has, however, to be mentioned. Its object is to abolish slavery. Its effect will be to render slavery more difficult than ever of abolishment. Its very popularity constitutes its greatest difficulty. It will keep ill-blood at boiling point, and irritate instead of pacifying those whose proceedings Mrs. Stowe is anxious to influence on behalf of humanity.” The long and elaborate review concludes with the following words—“Liberia, and similar spots on the earth's surface, proffer aid to the South, which cannot be rejected with safety. That the aid may be accepted with alacrity and good heart, let us have no more ‘Uncle Tom's Cabins’ engendering ill-will, keeping up bad blood, and rendering well-disposed, humane, but critically placed men their own enemies and the stumbling-blocks to civilisation, and to the spread of glad tidings from Heaven.”

Mrs. Stowe has either told the truth or she has not. If she has told the truth, it was right and proper that she should tell it, whether slaveholders were offended or pleased. The Times admits that slavery is an evil. If so, let the evil be exposed, whoever may be displeased. But if, on the other hand, Mrs. Stowe has not described truly, if her pictures be false, and her reflections erroneous, then will her book in the long run be considered of little value, and be soon consigned to the oblivion it merits. But Mrs. Stowe has not overdrawn the picture, she has only painted slave life as it is, and because she has spoken truly, the influence of her book “will be vast and immeasurable.”

The object I have in writing “Uncle Tom's Companions,” is to vindicate “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” and to refute the unjust criticisms of the Times, and all who think with that paper. I have done this by simply narrating passages in the lives of fugitive slaves—of men who have passed through the fiery furnace of slavery, and escaped, though not unhurt, to the land of freedom—of men, some of whom are now in England, and who cannot return to their native country on account of the Fugitive Slave Law. I have drawn no imaginary picture, I have summoned no ideal characters on the scene, and thrown around them the hues of my own fancy; but I have called as my witnesses men, living men—men who have walked, or who are now walking, the streets of London, but who a few years ago, suffered all the horrors which slavery inevitably inflicts. And they are not witnesses whose names are unknown. No, but those of Frederick Douglass, Dr. Pennington, the Rev. Mr. Garnett, William Wells Brown, and others, with whose views, or whose writings, a large proportion of the English public are familiarised: These men have been, and are “Uncle Tom's Companions.” They were his companions in slavery and in suffering, and it is right that their story should be told, and their testimony recorded, so that the general character of “Uncle Tom's Cabin” may be vindicated, for the sake of truth and humanity.

That “Uncle Tom's Cabin” should be so eagerly sought after and read, both in America and England, and produce the profound sensation it has, is the greatest compliment the age could pay to itself. All have contributed to give the book an enthusiastic reception; cheap editions and dear editions have followed each other with unexampled rapidity amongst us. Publishers of classical literature and publishers of trashy periodicals have sent forth editions of the book. Half-a-guinea editions and sixpenny editions have met with a rapid sale. And the most cheering fact of all is, that low publishers, who have hitherto only sent forth desolating streams of reading to the poorest classes of the community, have recently vied with each other in sending forth cheap editions of this wondrous work, and thereby showing that there was higher power of appreciation in the nation's heart than they were aware of, and that a poisoned cheap literature has only flourished in the absence of something sweeter and purer. Mrs. Stowe's work has not only sent vibrations along the chords of England's universal heart, but it has already familiarized large portions of our population with a story tender in pathos, pure in sentiment, and elevating in aim. Whatever may be the evils which fester in the midst of our dirty alleys and neglected homes, it is encouraging and full of hope to know that there is a heart ready to beat in unison with the good and the pure, among the lowest and most neglected of our population. Well may the benevolent and the philanthropic be grateful to Mrs. Stowe for what she has already done in England! She has touched the hidden cells of feeling of many a degraded outcast, and awoke in him that latent and moral life which exists, and which is inextinguishable in every heart, however degraded. Though England is renowned for its churches and its Bibles, it is well known that untold numbers of its population know nothing of Christianity and its power to save. And for years past praise-worthy exertions have been made by the Established Church, and other Christian communities, to diffuse the blessings of the Gospel among the most ignorant and wretched; but unfortunately but little practical good has hitherto resulted therefrom. Perhaps the means which have been used were and are unequal to the task to be performed. But “Uncle Tom's Cabin” will do, to a great extent, what sermons and tracts could not accomplish. It will be read or listened to by the lowest; and will, by virtue of its peculiar excellence, soften, and subdue, and purify. And many will see the workings and development of vital Christianity, as exhibited in the character of Uncle Tom, and the incarnate purity of the beautiful Eva, who would have no conception of such things by exhortations and tracts. Consequently, whether “Uncle Tom's Cabin” does its work in America or not, it is already doing a work here which no agency before accomplished.

As for “Uncle Tom's Cabin” being read by almost everybody everywhere, and not to a greater or less extent answer its purpose, is unreasonable and absurd. It is as well to say, that the flowery breath of spring awakens no cheerfulness, or the voluptuous swell of music yields no pleasure. The Pure and the Beautiful must, by virtue of their intrinsic excellence, influence for good all who are brought within their charmed circle.

There is something in the instantaneous effect produced by “Uncle Tom's Cabin” approaching the sublime. A gentle woman moves her pen, and stirs races. She speaks, and millions are charmed by her melodious accents. Clay, the modern disciple of Compromise, has frequently lashed audiences into a storm by his eloquence; and Webster, who was heaven-born, but slavery-corrupted, has frequently spoken ponderous words to a listening Senate; but their voices awoke no echoes in the universal heart—sent no electric currents through the great arteries of public opinion like “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” It will be seen, by-and-bye, that this gentle woman will do more to uproot slavery, than conventions and associations, and premature legislative action. She will do so by creating around Slavery an atmosphere of sentiment too pure for so vile a thing to live in. Has she not already upheaved a tide of feeling in her own country? And has not her book carried with it in this country, publishers, readers, newspapers, lecturers, theatres, and public opinion. And back a wave of that public opinion, charged with mingled sympathy and indignation, has gone to America, to add to the volume, of influence directed against slavery there.

The unbounded success of “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” intimates the growth of an important element of moral power in those modern days. It shows what woman can do, and indicates what she is destined to do for the elevation of the race. It has been said and sung, “that they who rock the cradle rule the world”—meaning thereby that woman wields an immense power in forming the minds and training the characters of the world's most illustrious sons. And it is so, and ever has been. The sages and heroes of the earth, have in their proudest moments of triumph and glory, principally attributed their success to the moral influence of their mothers. This must have been so, by the relationship necessarily existing between mother and child. But during the last few years, woman has been exerting another influence on the world. This she has been doing through the medium of that mightiest of all agencies—Literature. The age of Books and Newspapers has yet to come. Literature, though now mightier than the Pulpit and the Platform, and much mightier than both combined, grows in importance and power daily, and will continue to grow as the volume of years increase. And it is through this Literature that woman is destined to exert her potent strength in moulding the character and directing the destinies of man. To do this, it is not necessary that she should pour out high-sounding periods, but paint life as she sees and feels it; to speak, it may be, in monosyllables—but in syllables pregnant and vitalised with the essence of her soul, and then she will see, and the world will acknowledge her transcendant ability. The most powerful things are the most simple and silent. How silent is sunlight—and yet how powerful. Equally silent and equally powerful, in the moral world, is the sunlight of woman's life and genius, when directed through the atmosphere of literature. A notable instance is this “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” It is a simple story about simple people. There is no king, or noble lord, or pompous baronet, figuring in its pages. Its heroes and heroines are not taken from courtly circles. The pride and pomp of fashionable life, and the gorgeous display of fashionable aristocratic circles, and all the other gilded machinery, which are the staple materials of ordinary novels, are scarcely alluded to in Mrs. Stowe's work. No: the title of her book is “Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly,”—a title evidently too plebeian for British publishers, as we have not seen it adopted by any of them. Instead of parading before us the externally great, and the accidentally aristocratic, she induces us to walk with her in the midst of the most degraded of the human race—of men and women kept in servile bondage and shameful ignorance. She talks to us of their sorrows and sufferings, of their vices and virtues, of their wrongs and rights; and she talks in so simple a strain, that she enlists our most powerful sympathies in their behalf. She does it in a way that none but a woman could do. Mary Howitt, Mrs. S. C. Hall, George Sand, Mrs. Child, Eliza Cook, the author of “Jane Eyre,” and other living female writers, have given the world beautiful and captivating books—books distinguished as much for mental ability, as the moral purpose which pervades them. But that cluster of geniuses must now acknowledge another, and a greater star than any amongst their number. No one more triumphantly vindicates the significance of literature than Mrs. Stowe, as no one before has so effectively used it.

J. P. E. FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

The most remarkable fugitive slave, and one of the most remarkable men in America, is Frederick Douglass. He possesses powers of mind and oratorical ability which would render him popular anywhere. He is one of the most eloquent speakers living, and he can wield his pen with as much effect as he can his tongue. His intense energy of character and moral bravery are acknowledged by all. His integrity and dignity of life and actions have long stamped him as one of the most extraordinary citizens of the United States. “If there is a man on earth,” says Dr. Campbell “he is a man.” To give our readers an idea of what this man was a little after he escaped from slavery, and to sharpen their curiosity to know what they can of his previous perilous and romantic life, we cannot do better than give a few passages from an address, delivered by W. Lloyd Garrison, in Boston, in 1845. “In the month of August, 1841,” says he, “I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with Frederick Douglass. He was a stranger to nearly every member of this body, but having recently made his escape from the southern house of bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the abolitionists—of whom he had heard a somewhat vague description while he was a slave—he was induced to give his attendance on the occasion alluded to, though at that time a resident in New Bedford.

“Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence! fortunate for the millions of his manacled brethren yet panting for deliverance from their awful thraldom! fortunate for the cause of negro emancipation and of universal liberty! fortunate for the land of his birth, which he has done much to save and bless! fortunate for the large circle of friends and acquaintances whose sympathy and affection he has strongly secured by the many sufferings he has endured; by his virtuous traits of character, by his ever abiding remembrances of those who are in bonds, as being bound with him! fortunate for the multitudes in various parts of our republic whose minds he has enlightened on the subject of negro slavery, and who have been melted to tears by his pathos, or roused to virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against the enslavers of men! fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, ‘gave the assurance of a MAN,’ quickened the slumbering energies of his soul and consecrated him to the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor and letting the oppressed go free.

“I shall never forget his first speech at the convention; the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind, the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise; the applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous remarks. I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding and erect, in natural eloquence a prodigy, in soul manifestly ‘created but a little lower than the angles,’ yet a slave, aye, a fugitive slave, trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for the love of God and humanity. Capable of high attainments as an intellectual and moral being, needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race—by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!

“A beloved friend from New Bedford prevailed on Mr. Douglass to address the convention. He came forward to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive mind in such a novel position. After apologising for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble and thrilling reflections. As soon as he had taken, his seat, filled with hope and admiration, I rose, and declared that Patrick Henry, of revolutionary fame, never made a speech more eloquent in the cause of liberty, than the one we had just listened to from the lips of that hunted fugitive. So I believed at that time—such is my belief how: I reminded the audience of the peril which surrounded this self-emancipated young man at the North, even in Massachusetts, on the soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, among the descendants of revolutionary sires; and I appealed to them, whether they would ever allow him to be carried back into slavery, law or no law, constitution or no constitution. Their response was unanimous, and in thunder-tones, ‘No!’ ‘Will you succour and protect him as a brother-man—a resident of the old Bay State?’ ‘YES!’ shouted the whole mass, with an energy so startling, that the ruthless tyrants south of Mason and Dixon's line, might almost have heard the mighty burst of feeling, and recognised it as the pledge of an invincible determination on the part of those who gave it, never to betray him that wanders, but to hide the outcast, and firmly to abide the consequences.”

Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in the county of Talbot, Maryland. But when he was born no one knows. Slaves never know when they were born, and are as ignorant of such times as horses. Frederick Douglass says he never met with a slave who knew how old he was, or could tell his birthday. When one jockey asks another, in this country, how old may be the horse which is about to be sold, the answer is, “three or four years last fall.” It is precisely in this way that the ages of slaves are estimated in America. And this one fact speaks volumes of the real state and degradation of the slave there.

Frederick Douglass says, that a want of information concerning his own age when he was a boy, was a source of great unhappiness to him. White boys could tell their ages, and be felt uneasy and degraded that he could not. The nearest guess which he is now enabled to give of his ago is, that he supposes he was born some time during the year 1828.

His father was a white man, and rumour went so far as to say that his father was his master. This is not at all unlikely, as it frequently happens, in the slave-holding states, that the father and the master are one. Frederick was separated from his mother while he was an infant. It was a custom in that part of Maryland to part mothers from their children at a very early age. This no doubt, is done to hinder the development of the child's affection towards the mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. He never saw his mother more than a few times in his life. What need is there for any imagination to invent ideal disadvantages of slavery, when this one fact is acknowledged? The most tender and the strongest feeling in the human heart is that of a mother's love for her offspring. It is a feeling as strong, yea, even stronger than life itself—a feeling from which the mother derives unutterable joy, and the child immeasurable advantage. But this of all other feelings is trodden under foot and spurned at in America. But poor slave as Douglass mother was, the infamous exactions imposed upon her, did not crush every spark of maternal love in her breast. He says he never remembers seeing his mother by daylight. When she saw him it was at night time. But she died when he was seven years of age; but as he never enjoyed much of her soothing presence he did not probably feel the loss very poignantly.

Instead of being a privilege to have one's master for a father, it is a great disadvantage to the poor slave. This arises from the jealousy which the young mulatto excites in the breast of the master's wife. Douglass says, “the master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife. And cruel as the deed may appear, for a man to sell his own children to human fleshmongers, it is often the dictate of humanity for him to do so; for unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but a few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back.”

One of Douglass masters was called Anthony, and though a cruel man himself, he had an overseer more cruel still. The overseer's name was Plummer, who was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. This man was hardened by a long life of slave-holding. He even took pleasure in whipping a slave. Douglas says, “I have often been awakened at dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest.” Here is a statement recorded by an eye-witness, which no doubt, if related by Mrs. Stowe in her “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” would have excited the indignation of the “Times,” for its “stimulating” character. The same authority may doubt it now. But why doubt it? Does not familiarity breed contempt? Can we expect grapes from thorns and figs from thistles? Is not the slaveholder himself demoralized by the inhuman system he sustains? And if so, is it unreasonable to suppose that overseers should be inhuman? And if inhuman, is it net unreasonable to suppose that such statements as the above are exaggerations? In fact, such things cannot easily be exaggerated; and well might Douglass say, “It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.”

Douglass soon got under the tender mercies of another overseer, whose name was Severe, who was rightly named and, who soon died. He was followed by another whose name was Hopkins, who remained but a short time, because he was not sufficiently severe. Mr. Hopkins was succeeded by Mr. Austin Gore, “a man possessing in an eminent degree all those traits of character indispensable to what is called a first-rate overseer.” This Mr. Gore was a grave man, and though a young man, he indulged in no jokes, said no funny words, seldom smiled. His acts were in perfect keeping with his words. Overseers will sometimes indulge in a witty word, even with the slaves; not so with this Mr. Gore. He was “dressed in a little brief authority,” and must have made “e'en angels weep,” and poor slaves at the same time. “He spoke but to command, and commanded but to be obeyed; he dealt sparingly with his words, and bountifully with his whip; never using the former, while the latter would answer as well. When he whipped, he did so from a sense of duty, and feared no consequences. He did nothing reluctantly, no matter how disagreeable; always at his post, never inconsistent. He never promised but to fulfil. He was a man of the most inflexible firmness and stone-like coolness. He was of all overseers most dreaded by the slaves. His presence was painful, his eye flashed confusion, and seldom was his sharp shrill voice heard without producing horror and trembling in their hearts.”

Such is a passing sketch of a consistent man, whose barbarity was only equalled by the consummate coolness with which he committed the grossest and most savage deeds. He once undertook to whip a slave of the name of Demby. He had given Demby but a few stripes, when, to get rid of the scourging, he ran and plunged into a creek, and stood there at the depth of his shoulders, refusing to come out. “Gore told him that he would give him three calls, and that if he did not come out at the third call, he would shoot him. The first call was given. Demby made no response, but stood his ground. The second and third calls were made with the same result. Mr. Gore then, without consultation or deliberation by any one, not even giving poor Demby an additional call, raised his musket to his shoulder, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant poor Demby was no more, his mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood.

“A thrill of horror flashed through every soul upon the plantation, excepting that of Mr. Gore. He was asked by Colonel Lloyd, why he resorted to this extraordinary expedient? His reply was (as well as I remember) that Demby had become unmanageable—that he was setting a bad example to the other slaves—one which, if suffered to pass without some such demonstration on his part, would finally lead to the total subversion of all rule and order upon the plantation. He argued, that if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy the example; the results of which would be the freedom of the blacks, and the enslavement of the whites. Mr. Gore's defence was satisfactory. He was continued in his station as overseer upon the same plantation. His fame as an overseer went abroad. His horrid crime was not even submitted to judicial investigation. It was committed in the presence of slaves, and they of course could neither institute a suit, nor testify against him; and thus the guilty perpetrator of one of the bloodiest and most foul murders goes unvisited by justice, and uncensured by the community in which he lives.” In order to substantiate the fact, and to leave no doubt on the reader's mind, Mr. Douglass gives all its particulars. He says, “Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael's, Talbot county, Maryland, when I left there; and if he is still alive, he very probably lives there now; and if so, he is now, as he was then, as highly esteemed and as much respected as though his guilty soul had not been stained with his brother's blood.

“I speak advisedly when I say that killing a slave, or any coloured person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not accounted as a crime, either by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman, of St. Michael's, killed two slaves, one of them he killed with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of the commission of the awful deed. I have heard him do so, laughingly, saying, among other things, that he was the only benefactor of the country in the company, and that when others had done as much as he had done, we should be relieved of the d——d niggers.”

Mr. Douglass goes on to say “the wife of Mr. Giles Hicks, living but a short distance from where I used to live, murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, mangling her person in the most horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a few hours afterwards. She was immediately buried, but had only been in her untimely grave a few hours, before she was taken up and examined by the coroner, who decided that she had come to her death by beating. The offence for which this girl was thus murdered was this—She had been set that night to mind Mrs. Hicks' baby, and during the night she fell asleep, and the baby cried. The girl having lost her rest for several nights previous, did not hear the crying. They were both in the room with Mrs. Hicks. Mrs. Hicks finding the girl slow to move, jumped from her bed, seized an oak stick from the fire-place, and with it broke the girl's nose and breastbone, and thus ended her life. I will not say that this most horrid murder produced no sensation in the community. It did produce a sensation, but not enough to bring the murderess to punishment. There was a warrant issued for her arrest, but it was not served. Thus she escaped not only punishment, but even the pain of being arraigned before a court for her horrid crime.

“Whilst I am detailing bloody deeds which took place during my stay on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, I will briefly narrate another, which occurred about the same time as the murder of Demby by Mr. Gore.

“Colonel Lloyd's slaves were in the habit of spending a part of their nights and Sundays in fishing for oysters, and in this way made up the deficiency of their scanty allowance. An old man, belonging to Colonel Lloyd, while thus engaged, happened to get beyond the limits of his master's plantation, and on the premises of Beal Bondly. At this trespass Mr. Bondly took offence, and, with his musket, came down to the shore, and blew its deadly contents into the poor old man.

“Mr. Bondly came over to see Colonel Lloyd the next day, whether to pay him for his property, or to justify himself in what he had done, I know not; at any rate, this whole fiendish transaction was soon hushed up. There was little said about it, and nothing done. It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half cent to kill a nigger, and a half cent to bury one.”

Had Mrs. Stowe detailed such circumstances as these, it would have been said that her “pictures were too stimulating,” and her “delineations too highly coloured and exaggerated,” and that, consequently, she would defeat her purposes, and that the slave's fetters would be fastened still closer on her account. But we have here detailed facts not fictions; and these facts are given by an eye-witness, whose statements can be relied on, as much as those of any pro-slavery man in America.

Mr. Horace Greeley, a man of great mental endowments, and high moral respectability, said, in the “New York Tribune,” (a paper which circulates more copies daily than the “Times”) a little after Frederick Douglass' life was published, “We highly prize all evidence of this kind, and it is becoming more abundant. Douglass seems very just and temperate. We feel that his view, even of those who have injured him most, may be relied on. He knows how ‘to allow for motives and influences.’ ” Such is the endorsement of Mr. Horace Greeley's opinion of the truths contained in Frederick Douglass' narrative. Another authority, as high as that of Mr. Greeley's—Mr. Wendell Phillips, says, in a letter to Douglass, “In reading your life, no one can say that you have unfairly picked out some rare specimens of cruelty. We know that the bitter drops, which even you have drained from the cup, are no incidental aggravations, no individual ills, but such as much mingle always and necessarily in the lot of every slave. They are the essential ingredients, not the occasional results of the system.” Mr. Lloyd Garrison, another man who is as much celebrated for his virtuous character, as for his intense hatred of the “peculiar institution,” which it is the peculiar glory of America to possess, says, in the preface to Douglass' life, that every word it contains may be relied on for its truthfulness. The men whose names I have here mentioned are as respectable as any of the writers in the “Times” newspaper. That paper has impunged the character of Mrs. Stowe's book, because it is exaggerated, and yet that book does not contain instances more diabolical than those related by Douglass. The most barbarous incident detailed in “Uncle Tom's Cabin” is the death of Uncle Tom himself, and the means used to bring it about. He was flogged to death and his murderer was not arraigned before a court of justice. If he had been, there was no evidence to prove the fact, as the evidence of a slave is no evidence in the Southern States. This is quite consistent. Take away from a man over himself, ignore his individuality and humanity, and then take his evidence on oath before a court of justice, would be folly. It would be admitting him a man in the one instance and not in the other.

It so happens that where barbarous transactions take place, very frequently there is no white man near, and certainly no friendly white man. And it is quite evident, and quite reasonable to believe, that where one murder gets circulated, ten or more are heard nothing of; and it is not for a moment unreasonable to suppose, that in those great cotton plantations of the South, where the slave is held in such low estimation as a man, and where cruel hard-hearted overseers are permitted to have uncontrolled sway over him, that he should frequently fall a victim to the passion or caprice of those above him. We have just recorded five instances which occurred within a brief period, in a comparatively small portion of the slave-holding states. And as Mr. Douglass has given the names of the places, and the parties, without meeting with any authentic contradiction, we are bound to believe what he says, and in believing it, express our deepest detestation of slavery, and condemnation of slave-holders. As a confirmation of Mr. Douglass' evidence, we will give an extract from a Baltimore paper. The “Baltimore American,” of March 17, 1845, contains the following—

“SHOOTING A SLAVE.—We learn upon the authority of a letter from Charles county, Maryland, received by a gentleman of this city, that a young man, named Matthews, a nephew of General Matthews, and whose father, it is believed, holds an office at Washington, killed one of his slaves upon his father's farm, by shooting him. The letter states that young Matthews had been in charge of the farm; that he gave an order to the servant, which was disobeyed, when he proceeded to the house, obtained a gun, and, returning, shot the servant. He immediately,” the letter continues, “fled to his father's residence, where he still continues unmolested.” We give this extract as it is taken from a paper printed near where Douglass formerly lived.

After the above, we think, pardonable digression, we return to the early career of Douglass. He did not remain long on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and while there, was not, on the whole, treated harshly. He was sufficiently fortunate to become a bit of a favourite of Colonel Lloyd's son Daniel, and was employed in going with him on shooting excursions, and finding the birds after they were shot, or in running errands for Daniel's sisters. His young master would not allow older boys to impose on his “little nigger,” and would even go so far as to divide his cakes with him. Douglass says, “I was seldom whipped by my old master, and suffered little from anything else than hunger and cold. I suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold. The hottest summer, and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked—no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing but a coarse torn linen shirt, reaching only to my knees. I had no bed. I must have perished with cold, but that during the coldest nights, I used to steal a bag which was used for carrying corn to the mill. I would crawl into this bag, and then sleep on the cold, damp clay floor, with my head in, and feet out. My feet have been so cracked with the frost, that the pen with which I am writing, might be laid in the gashes. We were not regularly allowanced. Our food was coarse corn-meal, boiled, called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush,—some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate fastest got most; he that was strongest secured the best place, and few left the trough satisfied.”

Douglass was about eight years old when he left Colonel Lloyd's plantation to go to Baltimore, to live with Mr. Hugh Auld. When the information reached him that he was to go, he danced for joy; and why should he not? He had no home. His mother was dead, and there was nothing particular in Colonel Lloyd's plantation to attract him. He had three days to prepare previous to leaving for Baltimore; and these three days were spent in “washing off the plantation scurf, not so much because he wished to wash, but because Mrs. Lucretia had told him that he must get all the dead skin off his feet and knees before he could go to Baltimore, for the people there were very cleanly.” Besides, she was going to give him a pair of trousers. The thought of owning a pair of trousers was great indeed. He says, “It was almost a sufficient motive not only to make me take off what would be called by pig-drovers the mange, but the skin itself. I went at it in good earnest, working for the first time with the hope of reward.”

When he got to Baltimore, he found that he had to take care of the little son of Mr. Auld. Here he saw what he had never seen before—a white face beaming upon him with the most kindly emotions—the face of his mistress, Mrs. Sophia Auld. It was a strange sight to him, brightening up his pathway with the light of happiness. He ever afterwards attributed his removal from Colonel Lloyd's plantation as a manifestation of Providence, as it “opened the gateway to all his subsequent prosperity.”

His new mistress proved all she appeared, or at least for some time. “Her face was made of heavenly smiles, and her voice of tranquil music.” She taught Douglass the A. B. C., and to read words of three or four letters. But just at this part of his progress, her husband found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct him any further telling her that it was not only unlawful, but unsafe, to teach a slave to read. He said, if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing, but obey his master. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world, and he was right. For the very small amount of instruction the boy had received from his mistress awoke in him an unquenchable desire to know more. The words of his master sank deep into his heart, and stirred emotions which before slumbered. They were to him a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which his youthful understanding had struggled. He long entertained doubts about the relative positions of the white man and the black man, and could not imagine why the one should continue the slave of the other. But when he heard that learning would spoil the best nigger in existence, he saw in what consisted the controlling power of the white man over the slave. From that moment he saw the pathway from slavery to freedom. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, he set out with a high hope and a fixed purpose to learn to read at whatever cost of labour. “All the heaven of great desire” was lit within him. And now began his “pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.”

The plan which he adopted, and the one by which he was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys he met in the streets. As many of those as he could he converted into teachers, and used all kinds of manœuvres to entice them to teach him. When he was sent on errands he carried his little book with him, and by going one part of the way quickly, he found time to get a lesson before he returned. He used to carry crusts of bread with him, with which he would tempt the little hungry urchins to assist him to get the more valuable bread of knowledge, for which he was still more hungry. His master and mistress were now suspicious that he was learning to read, and watched him secretly, and threw every possible impediment in his way. But it was now too late. The first step was taken, and his mistress, in teaching him the alphabet, had given him the inch, by which he would take the ell. Little did she know what she was doing at the time. She was sending the first stray beam of sunlight into a soul that had wrapped up within it mighty powers. She was warning into real intellectual life an intellectual giant—a giant who would, in a very few years vindicate his equality with the greatest man in America. She was unknowingly instructing a boy who would soon, as a man, send his fame over the world—who would speak potent words and perform great deeds for humanity—a man who, had he a lighter-coloured skin, would, perhaps, soon have filled the President's chair itself. It is not even unlikely now that Frederick Douglass, though a coloured man, will, one day, be the President of the United States. For slavery cannot remain much longer in that country. In spite of all that Webster and all the compromise men have done, this question of questions must get uppermost, whether the integrity of the Union be threatened thereby or not. If slavery be abolished during Frederick Douglass' lifetime, then will he stand a good chance of being elected President. I remember hearing him when he came to this country some time since. He spoke at a large London meeting, and I never heard eloquence so-electrical before. I never saw an English audience so excited as it was under his magic words. He would, at one moment, lash the audience into a storm, and in another moment make it as tranquil as a lake without a ripple. When he sat down. Dr. Campbell, the Editor of the “British Banner,” got up and said, “That if he were a few years younger, he would have gone around the world to listen to that speech, rather than not have heard it.” And there was not a young man in that vast assembly who would not have followed the doctor; This extraordinary speech will form an Appendix to this volume. We give it verbatim, for two reasons, namely, to show what a poor fugitive slave could do in the greatest city of the world a few years after his self-emancipation, and secondly, to familiarize the British reader with the horrors of the slave system in America. Whoever reads this speech will say, that if it does not equal the finest efforts of Burke, whom the boy Douglass so much admired, that the man Douglass, with English cultivation and advantages, would successfully rival the great English orator. Such was the influence of Douglass' thrilling eloquence. And this man, a few years before, was a slave—a poor slave, in a country which boasts of its independence, its liberty, and its greatness! Well might Dr. Channing say “We are keeping in bondage one of the finest races living.” O, America, so sure as a God liveth, the day of retribution must come! So vast a crime cannot be perpetrated without punishment.

Frederick Douglass had not long continued reading before he saw and felt his degradation. Just about this time, and he was only about twelve years of age, he got hold of a book entitle “The Columbian Orator,” Among other stirring things in this book he with with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on behalf of Catholic Emancipation. This gave tongue to interesting thoughts of his own soul, which had flashed through it, and died away for want of utterance. As he read and contemplated, that very discontent which was alluded to by his master, came “to torment and sting his soul with unutterable anguish.” He began to feel that reading was a curse rather than a blessing to him. It opened his eyes to the horrible pit in which he was plunged. He preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to his own. He says, “anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking. It was everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it; it was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing; animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more for ever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in everything. It was ever present to torment me with the sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it; I heard nothing without hearing it; and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled-in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.”

The manner in which the future reformer and orator learnt to write is worth recording. The idea of how he might do so was suggested in a ship-yard. Here he frequently saw the ship-carpenters, after hewing and getting a piece of timber ready for use, write on it the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended. When a piece of timber was intended for the larboard side, it would be marked “L;” when a piece was for the starboard side, it would be marked “S,” and so on. In this way he learnt to write these and other letters, and immediately, in his way, commenced copying them. After that, when he met with any boy whom he knew could write, he would tell him he could write as well as him. He would be answered with “I don't believe you; let me see you try it.” He would then make the letters which he had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask the boy to beat that. In this way he got a great many writing lessons, which it would be impossible for him to get in any other way. During this time his copy book was the board-fence, the brick wall and pavement, and his pen and ink a lump of chalk. He says: “By this time my little master Thomas had gone to school, and learned how to write, and had written over a number of copy-books. These had been brought home, and shown to some of our near neighbours and then thrown aside. My mistress used to go to class-meeting every Monday afternoon, and leave me to take care of the house. When left thus I used to spend the time in writing on the spaces left in Master Thomas's copy-book, crossing what he had written. I continued to do-this until I could write a hand very similar to that of Master Thomas. Thus, after a long tedious effort, I finally succeeded in learning to write.”

Soon after this Douglass master died, and he, the slave, was valued with the other property. The stock on the estate was all valued together, men and women, old and young, married and single horses, sheep, and swine. Horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, were all held in the same rank in the scale of being by the valuer, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, underwent the same indelicate examination. Poignantly must the young slave have felt the degradation of his situation, when he saw himself held in the same estimation as the brutes. But such is slavery.

It fell to the lot of Douglass to be apportioned to Mrs. Lucretia, a daughter of his late master. In this he was fortunate, as he might have fallen to the portion of Master Andrew, who was a most cruel monster. “A man who,” says Douglass, “but a few days before, to give me a sample of his bloody disposition, took my little brother by the throat, threw him on the ground, and with the heel of his boot stamped upon his head, till the blood gushed from his nose and ears.” Very soon after this division of property, Mrs. Lucretia died; and a short time after her death, Master Andrew died. Now all the property of his late master fell into the hands of strangers. Not a slave was left free, not even Douglass' old grandmother, who had been a source of wealth to his late master. “If any one thing,” says Douglass, “in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, it was their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother. She had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great-grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes for ever. She was nevertheless left a slave—a slave for life—a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word as to their or her own destiny. And to cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she was of but little value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die! If my poor old grandmother now lives, she lives to suffer in utter loneliness; she lives to remember and mourn over the loss of her children, the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-grandchildren. The hearth is desolate. The children, the unconscious children, who once sang and danced in her presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in the darkness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices of her children, she hears by day the moans of the dove, and by night the screams of the hideous owl. The grave is at the door. And now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together—at this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise towards a declining parent—my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim embers. She stands—she sits—she staggers—she falls—she groans—she dies—and there are none of her children or grandchildren present, to wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold sweat of death, or to place beneath the sod her fallen remains. Will not a righteous God visit for these things?”

Douglass had to change masters several times. In 1832, he left Baltimore, and went and lived with Mr. Thomas Auld, at St. Michael's. This Mr. Auld was a mean man. He kept his slaves without sufficient food. And not to give a slave enough to eat is regarded as the most aggravated development of meanness, even among slaveholders. One of the most extraordinary moral phenomenon among slaveholders is, that those who profess to be religious are frequently the most cruel and mean. In August, 1832, this Mr. Auld attended a Methodist camp meeting, “and there experienced religion.” It was thought he would now alter for the better. But if he altered at all, he altered for the worse. For, prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his barbarity; but after his conversion he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made the greatest pretension to piety. He prayed morning, noon and night. His activity at revivals was very great, and he proved himself an instrument in the hands of the church in converting many souls. His house was the preachers' home. But while he stuffed the preachers, he starved his slaves. Such is one of the anomalies of human conduct, and it can only be explained on the principle that “familiarity breeds contempt.”

Slaveholders, by treating men as brutes, soon get to think men brutes; and then continue to treat them as brutes, as a matter of course. And so deeply rooted do prejudices get in their nature, that even the softening, sanctifying influences of Christianity make little or no impression on them. How indescribably low must these men be who put on the cloak of Christianity while engaged in a system so “steeped in iniquity,”—a system which has been called by a distinguished critic “the sum of human villanies,” “I am filled with unutterable loathing,” says Douglass, “When I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies which co-exist in the slave states. They have menstealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earning at the end of each week, meets me as a class leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life and the path of salvation. he who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible, denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage, robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scathes whole families—sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers—leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the Gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen? All for the glory of God, and the good of souls!

“The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals in religion and revivals in the slave-trade, go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and the solemn prayer in the church may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. There we behold religion and robbery the allies of each other; slavery and piety linked and interlinked; preachers of the Gospel united with slaveholders. A horrible sight, to see devils dressed in angels' robes, and hell, presenting the semblance of paradise!”

Another evidence of the falseness and hypocrisy of this man, who professed to be a follower of Him who was so meek and lowly, so pure and disinterested, may be ascertained from his treatment of a lone young woman. When quite a child she fell into the fire, and burned herself horribly. Her hands got so burnt that she never again had the use of them. She could do very little to gain her own livelihood, and consequently was considered a burden on the estate. She was once given away to Auld's sister; but being a poor gift was quickly returned. And this man—this religious man—would tie up this lame young woman, and whip her with a cowskin on her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drop, and in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote the following passage of Scripture—“He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” And he would keep this lacerated young woman tied up in this horrid situation, four or five hours at a time. He was known to tie her up early in the morning and whip before breakfast; leave her, go to his store, return to dinner, and whip her again, cutting her in the places already made raw, with his cruel lash. Another secret of this man's cruelty toward the poor woman was found in the fact of her being almost helpless.”

It is not at all likely that a man who would treat a female slave so harshly, would show more mercy to the males. And poor Douglass, like the rest, had much to put up with. One of his greatest faults was letting his master's horse run away, and go down to his father-in-law's farm, which was about four miles from St. Michael's. And Douglass had to go and fetch it and his reason for this kind of carelessness, or carefulness, was that he always managed to get enough to eat when there. No doubt such a desideratum was an inducement for Douglass to let the horse run away and follow him pretty frequently. At last Mr. Auld got so tired with his slave, who always got hungry, if he had not enough to eat, that ho determined on letting him out to a “nigger broker” for twelve months. He was accordingly let to a Mr. Covey for one year. This Mr. Covey, who performed such a noble mission in the world, as that of “breaking in” obstreperous niggers, was not, as it might reasonably be expected, distinguished for his humanity. He had acquired a very high reputation for training young slaves—for making them methodical, steady-going workers. When Douglass heard that he was about to be removed to be improved, he was not disheartened, as he knew, from what he had heard, though he should have to work hard under the strictest and severest discipline, that he should have enough to eat, which is not the smallest consideration to a hungry man. During all this time he felt the degradation of his position. He yearned for freedom, and frequently revolved in his mind the best mode of making his escape. Every bit of information that he could get, that would in any way enable him to see how he might get to the land of freedom, was most cordially welcomed.

He left Mr. Auld's house, and went to live with Covey, “the nigger broker,” on the 1st of January, 1833. Being accustomed to a city life, and unaccustomed to field employment, he found himself more awkward than a country boy in a large city. He had been in his new home no more than one week, before Mr. Covey gave him a severe whipping, cutting his back, and causing the blood to run, and raising ridges there as large as his finger. Such treatment was not at all likely to reconcile him to the life of a slave, and especially as he had been so impertinent as to wish himself a free man. During the first six months he remained with Mr. Covey, a week did not escape without his being lashed. He was hardly ever free from a sore back. Think of this ye who know what it is to breath the air and enjoy the sunlight of freedom! Think of this young man, possessing sensitive feelings, who was keenly alive to the degradation of his lot, from whose deep heart would frequently bubble up hopes for liberty, who possessed a mind, even then, more capacious and enlightened than his master's—always carrying with him a sore back—a back made sore by frequent whippings. And this while he was worked fully up to the point of endurance. He says, “long before day we were up, our horses fed, and by the first approach of day all were off to the field, both with our hoes and ploughing teams. Mr. Covey gave us enough to eat, but scarce time to eat it. We were often less than five minutes taking our meals, we were often in the fields from the first approach of day till its last lingering ray had left us, and saving fodder time, midnight often caught us in the field binding blades.”

“If at any one time of my life more than another,” says he, “I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, or snow too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work was scarcely more the order of the day than the night. The longest days were too short for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline soon tamed me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit; my natural elasticity was crushed; my intellect languished; the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me.”

But he was not altogether crushed. The Godlike in his nature was not altogether effaced. There were still some lingering hopes of freedom, some embers still smoulderings in the depths of his heart, which even, the brutal discipline of Mr. Covey could not quench. Had he been but a little weaker minded man,—did not nature ended him with the elements of that intellectual and moral life, which were unextinguishable,—then would he have remained in slavery, and the world would have lost a great man.

Sunday was his only leisure time, which be spent in a beast-like stupor, between sleep and wakefulness, under some large tree. At times he would rise up, a flash of freedom would dart through his soul, accompanied with a faint gleam of hope, that flickered for a moment and then vanished. Years afterwards he said “My sufferings in this plantation seem now more like a dream than a reality.”

It seemed at the time that fate delighted to tantalise him. He possessed a nature capable of enjoying freedom, but was not permitted to realise it; and his master's house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from all quarters of the globe. These vessels, robed in white canvas, so beautiful to the eye of the painter, were to him so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment him with thoughts of his own wretched condition. He frequently, in the deep stillness of a summer's Sabbath, stood alone upon the lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced with saddened and tearful eye, the countless number of sail moving off to the great ocean. Such a sight powerfully affected him. It would stir the very depths or his soul: at one moment he would wish himself a brute, and at another he would give utterance to his most cherished aspirations; and there, with no audience but the Almighty One, he would pour out his soul's complaint in fervent apostrophes to the moving multitudes of ships, in language like the following:

“You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels, that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I were free! O that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wings! Alas! betwixt me and you the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the Hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught or get clear, I'll try it. I had as well, die with ague as the fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me to freedom. The steam-boats steer in a north-east course from North Point. I will do the same; and when I go to the head of the bay, I will turn my canoe adrift, and walk straight through Delaware to Pensylvania. When I get there I shall not be required to have a pass. I can travel without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and come what will, I am off. Meanwhile I will try to bear up under the yoke. I am not the only slave in the world. Why should I fret? I can bear as much as any of them. Besides, I am but a boy, and all boys are bound to some one. It may be that my misery in slavery will only increase my happiness when I get free. There is a better day coming.”

Lloyd Garrison, in his preface to Douglass' narrative, from which we have taken the above, and the other quotations, says, “Who can read that passage and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity? Compressed into it is a whole Alexandrian library of thought, feeling, and sentiment—all that can, all that need, be urged in the form of expostulation, entreaty, rebuke, against the crime of crimes—making man the property of his fellow-men. O, how accursed is that system, which entombs the godlike mind of man, defaces the divine image, reduces those who, by creation, were crowned with glory and honour, to a level with four-footed beasts, and exalts the dealer in human flesh above what is called God.”

“So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many persons, that they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any recital of the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims. They do not deny that the slaves are held as property; but that terrible fact seems to convey to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure, or outrage, or savage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, of mutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollution and blood, of the banishment of all light and knowledge, and they affect to be greatly indignant at such enormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements, such abominable libels on the character of the southern planters! As if all these direful outrages were not the natural results of slavery! As if it were less cruel to reduce a human being to the condition of a thing, than to give him a severe flagellation, or to deprive him of necessary food and clothing! As if whips, chains, thumb-screws, paddles, blood-hounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, were not all indispensable to keep the slaves down, and to give protection to their ruthless oppressors! As if, when the marriage institution is abolished, concubinage, adultery, and incest, must not necessarily abound; when all the rights of humanity are annihilated, any barrier remains to protect the victim from the fury of the spoiler; when absolute power is assumed over life and liberty, it will not be wielded with destructive away.”

But irresistibly destructive as slavery generally is in taming the mind, and rendering it comparatively contented with its fate, it did not, and could not, quench the spiritual fire in Douglass' nature. The wide expanse of Chesapeake Bay, the tumbling of its everlasting waves, whispering as they did of freedom, the memories of this former reading, and the teachings of nature fed within him the fire of hope and expectation. He was bent but not broken; and an opportunity soon presented itself for him to show that he had the will and the power to resist his oppressor. On one hot summer day, after working excessively hard, he was seized with a violent headache, attended with extreme dizziness. He trembled in every limb, and at last fell from sheet exhaustion. Mr. Covey seeing him down, came and asked him what was the matter. Douglass told him as well as he could, for he had scarce strength to speak. This only brought to him a savage kick. Douglass tried to get up; he again staggered and fell. While down in this situation, Covey took up “the hickory slat with which Hughes had been striking off the half-bushel measure,” and gave him a heavy blow on the head, and made a large wound, from which the blood flowed freely. The loss of blood relieved his head; and as soon as he could rise, he resolved to go and tell his legal master, Mr. Auld, what had occurred; and after a journey of about seven miles, through bogs and briars, barefooted and bareheaded, he presented himself to this humane gentlemen. From his head to his feet he was covered in blood. His hair was clotted with dust and blood—his shirt was stiff with blood. He looked like a man who had just escaped by the skin of his teeth, a den of lions. But his tale and his pleadings availed nothing. He was told to go back to Mr. Covey, which he did the following morning. As soon as Covey saw him he ran after him with the cow-hide, and was about to lay it on “pretty slick,” but Douglass made his escape into a corn-field; and as the corn was very high, it afford him the means of hiding. He spent the most of the day in the woods, having the alternative before him—to go home and be whipped to death, or stay in the wood and be starved to death, but the following day being Sunday he resolved to return. When he got home he met Mr. Covey in the gateway, who, instead of being angry, spoke kindly to him. He was told to drive the pigs from a lot near by. This singular conduct impressed Douglass; he could not imagine what could have happened to have made his master so civil. All went on well till Monday. Long before morning he was told to go and rub, curry, and feed the horses, which he did with alacrity. But whilst this happened, Mr. Covey entered the stable with a long rope, and immediately caught hold of Douglass' legs and began tying them. But we will let Douglass speak for himself. “As soon as I knew what he was up to, I gave a sudden spring, and as I did so, he holding to my legs, I was brought sprawling on the stable floor. Mr. Covey seemed now to think he had me, and could do what he pleased; but at this moment, from whence came the spirit I don't know, I resolved to fight; and suiting my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat; and as I did so, I rose. He held on to me, and I to him. My resistance was so entirely unexpected, that Covey seemed taken all aback. He trembled like a leaf. This gave me assurance, and I held him uneasy, causing the blood to run where I touched him with the ends of my fingers. Mr. Covey soon called out to Hughes for help. Hughes came, and, while Covey held me, attempted to tie my right hand. While he was in the act of doing so, I watched my chance, and gave him a heavy kick close under the ribs. This kick fairly sickened Hughes, so that he left me in the hands of Mr. Covey. This kick had the effect of not only weakening Hughes, but Covey also. When he saw Hughes bending over with pain, his courage quailed. He asked me if I meant to persist in my resistance? I told him I did, come what might; that he had used me like a brute for six months, and that I was determined to be used so no longer. With that he strove to drag me to a stick that was lying just out of the stable door. He meant to knock me down. But just as he was leaning over to get the stick, I seized him with both hands by his collar, and brought him by a sudden snatch to the ground. By this time, Bill came. Covey called upon him for assistance. Bill wanted to know what he could do. Covey said, ‘Take hold of him! take hold of him!’ Bill said, his master hired him out to work, and not to help to whip me; so he left Covey and myself to fight our own battle out. We were at it for nearly two hours. Covey at length let me go, puffing and blowing at a great rate, saying, that if I had not resisted, he would not have whipped me half so much. The truth was, that he had not whipped me at all. I considered him as getting entirely the worst end of the bargain; for he had drawn no blood from me, but I had from him. The whole six months afterwards, that I spent with Mr. Covey, he never laid the weight of his finger upon me in anger. He would occasionally say, he didn't want to get hold of me again. ‘No,’ thought I, ‘you need not; for you will come off worse than you did before.’

“This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning point in my career as a slave. It kindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me again with a determination to be free. The gratification afforded by the triumph was a full compensation for whatever else might follow, even death itself. He only can understand the deep satisfaction which I experienced, who has himself repelled by force the bloody arm of slavery. I felt as I never felt before. It was a glorious resurrection from the tomb of slavery to the heaven of freedom. My long crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place, and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in in form, the day had passed forever when I should be a slave in fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known of me that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping must also succeed in killing me.”

Douglass fully expected that he would soon be taken by the constable to the whipping post, and he was surprised to find that Mr. Covey took no steps in that direction; and the only explanation he could give was, that had Mr. Covey done so to him—a boy about sixteen years of age—his reputation would have been lost, and so Douglass was unpunished. His term of service terminated with Covey on Christmas-day, 1833. The days between Christmas-day and New Year's day are allowed as holidays.

The holidays the slave enjoys are a part and parcel of the gross fraud of the system of slavery. They are professedly a custom established by the benevolence of the slaveholders. They generally consist in ball-playing, wrestling, running footraces, fiddling, dancing, and drinking whiskey: and this latter mode of spending the time is generally most agreeable to the master. It is deemed a disgrace not to get thoroughly drunk at Christmas; and he is regarded as lazy indeed, who does not provide himself during the year, with necessary means to get whiskey enough to last him through Christmas.

But why does the slaveholder promote those drunken orgies among his slaves? Because it is his interest to do so. The slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those days in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object is to disgust their slaves with freedom. For instance, the slaveholders not only like when the slaves drink of their own accord, but will adopt various plans to make them drink more. One plan is, to make bets on the slaves, as to who can drink most whiskey without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, if the slave ask for freedom, the cunning master cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, wilfully labelled with the name of liberty. But the slaves during the holidays having had a taste of liberty, and a bitter draught they get, are led to think there is but little to choose between liberty and slavery. So when the holidays end, they stagger from their filthy debaucheries to the field, and feel, on the whole, rather glad to go, from what their masters induce them to believe was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.

On the 1st of January, 1834, Douglass left Mr. Covey and went to live with a Mr. William Freeland, a much superior man to Mr. Covey. He, in fact, was the best master Douglass ever had until he became his own master. While with Freeland he had enough to eat, and what was equally valuable, time enough to eat it. From the description he gives of himself while in this establishment, it appears that he passed his time pretty comfortably, as he was only worked from sunrise to sunset. The small amount of spare time Douglass had at his command, he devoted to the very best account. He was not there long before he succeeded in creating in his companions a desire to read. This desire soon extended itself to other slaves in the neighbourhood. They soon mustered up some old spelling-books, and nothing would satisfy them but Douglass meeting them on the Sunday to teach them. He agreed to do so, and accordingly devoted his Sundays to teaching his fellow-slaves to read. Not one of them knew even his letters when Douglass went there. This was all done in the greatest possible secrecy. It was necessary to keep their religious masters unacquainted with the fact; for these men would much rather see their slaves spending their Sabbaths in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whiskey, than trying to read the New Testament.

Here was a sight approaching the sublime—a sight that might be spoken of in story and chanted in song. Here was a poor slave, who had learnt to read himself, in spite of all the difficulties which were thrown in his way, now gathering around him his companions in bonds, and teaching them, in secret, how they might in some way soften their hard destiny by reading. But the fact got known, and one Sunday Messrs. Wright Fairbanks, and Garrison West, both class-teachers, with a great many others rushed in upon the teacher and his pupils, and with the aid of sticks, stones, and violence, broke up the Sabbath-school. Here were consistent followers of the meek and lowly Jesus dispelling by brutal force inoffensive men, and this too on the Sunday, who were guilty of no greater crime than trying to read the New Testament!

“I held my Sabbath-school,” says he, “at the house of a free-coloured man, whose name I deem it imprudent to mention; for should it be known, it might embarrass him greatly, though the crime of holding the school was committed ten years ago. I had at one time over forty scholars, and those of the right sort, ardently desiring to learn. They were of all ages, though mostly men and women. I look back to those Sundays with an amount of pleasure not to be expressed. They were great days to my soul. The work of instructing my dear fellow-slaves was the sweetest engagement with which I was ever blessed. We loved each other, and to leave them at the close of the Sabbath was a severe cross indeed. When I think that these precious souls are to-day shut up in the prison-house of slavery, my feelings overcome me, and I am almost ready to ask, ‘Does a righteous God govern the universe? and for what does he hold the thunder in his right hand, if not to smite the oppressor, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the spoiler?” These dear souls came not to Sabbath-school, because it was popular to do so, nor did I teach them because it was reputable to be thus engaged. Every moment they spent in that school they were liable to be taken up and receive thirty-nine lashes. They came because they wished to learn. Their minds had been starved by their cruel masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught them, because it was the delight of my soul to be doing something that looked like the bettering the condition of my race. I kept up my school nearly the whole year I lived with Mr. Freeland; and, besides my Sabbath-school, I devoted three evenings in the week, during the winter, to teaching the slaves at home. And I have the happiness to know that several of those who came to the Sabbath-school learned how to read; and that one, at least, is now free through my agency.”

The time flowed smoothly on while Douglass remained on Mr. Freeland's estate. The first year passed without his receiving a blow. He was not only blessed with a good master, but with generous companions. He loved them, and they loved him. They were linked and interlinked with each other. In speaking of them Douglass says, “I loved them with a love stronger than anything I have experienced since. It is sometimes said that we slaves do not love each other. In answer to this assertion, I can say, I never loved any. or confided in any people, more than my fellow-slaves, and especially those with whom I lived at Mr. Freeland's. I believe we would have died for each other. We never undertook to do anything of any importance, without a mutual consultation. We never moved separately. We were one; and as much so by the mutual hardships to which we were necessarily subjected by our condition as slaves.”

Listen to this ye who prate about the inferiority of the negro race. Do you possess nobler feelings than these? If not, for ever hold. your tongue in silence. Here were men shut out from the pale of civilization, robbed of their rights, debarred from all privileges of moral and mental improvement, yet yearning for knowledge, and acquiring it in fear of difficulty and bound together by a bond of brotherhood as strong and as sacred as ever united human beings.

This improved condition did not reconcile Douglass to his lot. He still panted for freedom; but he loved his brethren in bonds so much, that he would not-think of escaping without them. And having communicated to them what little he possessed in the way of learning, he began gradually to imbue their minds with a love of liberty. He in fact became a propagandist. He impressed on their minds the gross fraud and inhumanity of slavery. He ascertained their secret feelings, and found them all to possess generous, warm, and noble hearts. They often met and confidentially consulted over the idea of escaping; they recounted their difficulties; told their hopes and fears. At times they were almost disposed to give up, and try to content themselves with their lot; at others they were determined to go. But their path was beset with the greatest obstacles. They knew nothing of Canada. At every gate through which they were to pass, they saw a watchman—at every ferry, a guard—at every bridge, a sentinel—and in every wood, a patrol. They were hemmed in on every side. On the one hand, there stood slavery, a stern reality, glaring frightfully upon them,—its robes already crimsoned with the blood of millions, and even then feasting itself greedily upon their own vitals. On the other hand, away back in the dim distance, and under the flickering light of the north star, behind some craggy hill or snow-covered mountain, stood a doubtful freedom—half-frozen—beckoning them to come and share its hospitality. This, in itself, was sometimes enough to stagger them; but when they permitted themselves to survey the road, they were frequently appalled. Upon either side they saw grim death, assuming the most horrid shapes. Now it was starvation, causing them to eat their own flesh; now they were contending with the waves, and were drowned; now they were overtaken, and torn to pieces by the fangs of the terrible bloodhound. They were stung by scorpions, chased by wild beasts, bitten by snakes, and, finally, after having nearly reached the desired spot,—after swimming rivers, encountering wild beasts, sleeping in the woods, suffering hunger and nakedness,—they were overtaken by their pursuers, and, in their resistance, they were shot dead upon the spot! We say, this picture sometimes appalled them, and made them “Rather bear the ills they had, Than fly to others that they knew not of.” In coming to a fixed determination to run away, they did more than Patrick Henry, when he resolved upon liberty or death. With them it was doubtful liberty at most, and almost certain death if they failed.

Sandy, one of their number, gave up the notion, but still encouraged them. Their company then consisted of Henry Harris, John Harris, Henry Bailey, Charles Roberts, and Douglass. Henry Bailey was Douglass' uncle, and belonged to his master. Charles married his aunt; he belonged to his master's father-in-law, Mr. William Hamilton.

The plan they finally concluded upon was, to get a large canoe belonging to Mr. Hamilton, and upon the Saturday night previous to the Easter holidays, paddle directly up the Chesapeake Bay. On their arrival at the head of the bay, a distance of from seventy to eighty miles from where they then lived, they purposed turning their canoe adrift, and to follow the guidance of the north star, until they got beyond the limits of Maryland. Their reason for taking the water route was, they would be less liable to be suspected as runaways; they hoped to be regarded as fishermen; whereas, if they took the land route they would be subject to interruptions of almost every kind. Any one having a white face, and being so disposed, could stop them, and subject them to examination.

The week before their intended start, Douglass wrote several protections, one for each of them, in nearly the following words:

“This is to certify that I, the undersigned, have given the bearer, my servant, full liberty to go to Baltimore, and spend the Easter holidays.

“Written with mine own hand, &c. 1835. “WILLIAM HAMILTON. “Near St. Michael's, in Talbot County, Maryland.”

After preparing all their plans they anxiously waited for the day when they were to start. They well sustained and fortified themselves in their resolution. Friday night previous to the eventful Saturday was a sleepless one for Douglass, as the whole of the responsibility of the enterprize rested on him. Early in the morning they went as usual to the fields. With their hearts beating with high expectation; the horn was blown for breakfast. But just when they got to it, Douglass was seized by three constables, and without a word of explanation, his hands and feet were immediately tied; and one after another the intended fugitives were all secured. Their intention by some means had got wind just on the eve of their contemplated flight, and all their bright hopes were blasted. Instead of freedom, they were all hurried off to prison. Their well proposed scheme availed them nothing. And hearts which were beating quickly in the morning with mingled hope, joy, and anxiety, were now thrown into confusion and shrouded with sorrow. And he to whom would be attributed all the glory if they succeeded, now had to bear the greatest share of the despair; but not from those who were in chains with him: they were all true to each other. There was no Judas among the lot—no one who would shift the responsibility on his brother's shoulders. Immediately on the arrest, Douglass managed to destroy his protection ticket; and as they were on their way to prison the others asked Douglass what they should do with theirs. Having some biscuits with them he told them to eat the tickets with the biscuits, which they did. He also gave them a pass word, “Own nothing!” and “Own nothing,” whispered they all. Firm to each other in misfortune, and undismayed in the hour of difficulty, they cared but little where they went as long as they went together, or what they suffered as long as they could share each other's sympathies. They were now more concerned about their separation than anything else. They dreaded that as much as death. They would have marched to the gallows with a martyr's spirit, and, if they were acquainted with the word, died with “excelsor” on their lips, rather than be false to each other.

They were told that the evidence against them was the testimony of one person, but who that was, their master would not tell them. When they arrived at the jail, they were delivered into the hands of the sheriff, who put them in different cells. They were not there more than twenty minutes, when a swarm of slave-traders, or agents for slave-masters, flocked into the jail to ascertain if they were for sale. “Such a set of beings,” says Douglas, “I never saw before I felt myself surrounded by so many fiends from perdition. A band of pirates never looked more like their father the devil. And after taunting us in various ways they one by one went into an examination of us, with intent to ascertain our value.”

Immediately after the holidays were over, Mr. Freeland came and gave all but Douglass a free pardon, and took him away with him. This no doubt was done because they were very much wanted at home, and besides as Douglass was the ringleader of the enterprize, and as the others would not in all likelihood, have made their escape, without his Instigation and encouragement.

Douglass was now left to his fate—all alone within the walls of a stone prison. Here he was left a week, when, to his surprise and astonishment, Captain Auld, his master, came and took him out, and instead of selling him, sent him back to Baltimore to learn a trade. No doubt the chief reason why he was not sent away, was that he was a clever fellow; and his master saw that if well treated he could be turned to excellent account. In this unromantic manner ended the grand project of escaping to the land of freedom, and Douglass was doomed to servitude a few years longer.

When he got to Baltimore he was hired by a Mr. W. Gardner to learn how to caulk. It proved, however, a very unfavourable plan for the accomplishment of such an object; for, during the first eight months they were very busy, on account of some vessels which were to be launched during the coming summer, and Douglass being a general assistant, was claimed by every body to do every thing. He was plaed at the back and call of seventy-four men, and was to regard them all as masters. “My situation,” says he, “at times, was a most trying one. At times I needed a dozen pair of hands. I was called a dozen ways in the space of a single minute. Three or four voices would strike my ear at the same moment. It was ‘Fred, help me to cant this timber here.’—‘Fred, come, carry this timber yonder.’—Fred, bring that roller here.'—‘Fred, go fetch a fresh can of water.’—‘Fred, come, help to saw off the end of this timber.’—‘Fred, go quick, and get the crow-bar.’—‘Fred, hold on the end of this fall.’—‘Fred, go to the blacksmith's shop, and get a new punch.’—‘Hurra, Fred, run and bring me a cold chisel.’—‘I say, Fred, bear a hand, and get up a fire as quick as lightning under that steam-box.’—‘Hallo, nigger! come turn this grindstone.’—‘Come, come! move, move! and this timber forward.’—‘I say, darky, why don't you heat up some pitch?’—‘Hallo! hallo! hallo!’ (three voices at the same time.)—‘Come here!—go there!—Hold on where you are.— * * * you, if you move, I'll knock your brains out!’ ”

This was my school for eight months; and I might have remained there longer; but for a most horrid fight I had with four of the white apprentices, in which my left eye was nearly knocked out, and I was horribly, mangled in other respects. The facts of the case were these. Until a very little while after I went there, white and black ship-carpenters worked side by side, and no one seemed to see any impropriety in it. All hands seemed to be very well satisfied. Many of the black carpenters were free men. Things seemed to be going on very well. All at once the white carpenters knocked off, and said they would not work with free coloured workmen. Their reason for this, as alleged, was, that if free coloured carpenters were encouraged, they would soon take the trade into their own hands, and poor white men would be thrown out of employment. They, therefore, felt called upon at once to put a stop to it. And taking advantage of Mr. Gardner's necessities, they broke off, swearing they would work no longer, unless he would discharge his black carpenters. Now, though this did not extend to me in form, it did reach me in fact. My fellow-apprentices very soon began to feel it degrading to them to work with me. They began to put on airs, and talk about the “niggers” taking the country, saying we all ought to be killed; and being encouraged by the journeymen, they commenced making my condition as hard as they could, by hectoring me around, and sometimes striking me. I, of course, kept the vow I made after the fight with Mr. Covey, and struck back again, regardless of consequences; and while I kept them from combining, I succeeded very well; for I could whip the whole of them, taking them separately. They, however, at length combined, and came upon me, armed with sticks, stones, and heavy handspikes. One came in front with a half brick. There was one at each side of me, and one behind me. While I was attending to those in front, and on either side, the one behind ran up with a handspike, and struck me a heavy blow upon the head. It stunned me. I fell, and with this they all ran upon me, and commenced beating me with their fists. I let them lay on for a while, gathering strength. In an instant, I gave a sudden surge, and rose to my hands and knees. Just as I did that, one of their number gave me, with his heavy boot, a powerful kick in the left eye. My eye-ball seemed to have burst. When they saw my eye closed, and badly swollen, they left me. With this I seized the handspike, and for a time pursued them. But here the carpenter interfered, and I thought I might as well give it up. It was impossible to lift my hand against so many. All this took place in sight of not less than fifty white ship-carpenters, and not one interposed a friendly word; but some cried, “Kill the • • • nigger! kill him! kill him! He struck a white person!” I found my only chance for life was in flight. I succeeded in getting away without an additional blow, and barely so; for to strike a white man is death by Lynch-law, and that was the law in Mr. Gardner's ship-yard; her is there much of any other out of Mr. Gardner's ship-yard, within the bounds of the Slave states.”

After such brutal treatment, Douglass went to his master and told him his wrongs. Mr. Auld felt indignant that any one should treat his servant in such a manner, and immediately tried to get redress. He went to Mr. Gardner and tried to get redress, but could not, as no white man would testify to the brutal outrage. No warrant could be issued on Douglass' own word or on the word of any coloured man. If he had been killed in the presence of a thousand coloured persons, their united testimony would have been insufficient to have arrested one of the murderers. If any white man, out of sympathy, might have been induced to bear testimony in behalf of the slave, it would have required an unprecedented degree of courage, for at that time the slightest manifestation of humanity towards a coloured man was denounced as “abolitionism,” and that name subjected its bearer to frightful liabilities.

Douglass' master, finding he could get no redress, refused to let him return to Mr. Gardner, but kept him in his own house, while his wife dressed the wound, and tenderly treated him until he was restored to health. He was then taken to the ship-yard of Mr. Walter Price, where he was set to work, and very soon learned the art of using his mallet and other tools. In the course of one year from the time he left Mr. Gardner's, as he was able to command the highest wages given to the most experienced caulker, he was now of some importance to his master, as he brought him eight or nine dollars per week—his wages being generally a dollar and a half a day. He soon made so much progress, and his master placed so much confidence in him, that he sought for his own employment, made his own contracts, and collected his money, which he regularly paid over to his master every week. He sometimes even enjoyed a little leisure, and when he did, those odd notions about freedoom, about being his own master and realising the blessings of his own industry, would steal over him and absorb his attention. While he was at Mr. Gardner's he was kept in such a perpetual whirl of excitement, that he could think of nothing but his own life, and in thinking of his life, he almost forgot his liberty. When the stream of life ran on more smoothly and comfortably, it did not increase his contentment, but made him more melancholy and miserable. He found to be a contented slave; it was necessary to be a thoughtless one. The moral and mental vision of the slave must be kept dark, and, as far as possible, his power of reason annihilated, or he will begin to think of his condition and get discontented. The saying of Napoleon, “The worse man the better soldier,” may with propriety be applied to the slave.

It was reasonable that Douglass should feel unhappy. He was earning one dollar, fifty cents a day. He contracted for it, he earned it; the money was paid to him, and rightfully belonged to him, yet every Saturday night he paid over every cent to his master. Even the most ordinary slave could not but feel the injustice of such a condition of life; and to any one who had really thought on the wrongfulness of slavery, and who had fanned in his breast hopes of freedom must of necessity have felt indignant when he paid over to another man that which rightfully belonged to himself.

The time had now come when he was determined to make another effort for freedom. In the early part of 1838 he became quite restless. He felt that his life was passing away without fulfilling its mission; that manhood had arrived, and he was still a slave.

Some time after Douglass had been earning regularly his nine or ten dollars a-week, he induced his master to let him “hire his time”—that was to provide himself with tools, food, lodging and clothing, and carry his master so much every week. This sum he was compelled to make up or lose the privilege of hiring his time. Rain or shine, work or no work, at the end of each week the money must be forthcoming. This arrangement was decidedly in his master's favour. It relieved him of all need of looking after Douglass. The master's money was sure. He received all the comforts of slaveholding without its evils, while Douglass, endured all the evils of, a slave, and suffered all the anxieties of a freeman. But, hard as it was, it was better than the general mode of slave life. It had the semblance of freedom. Even sham freedom was better than no freedom. This “hiring out” was a step towards freedom. It enabled him to bear and to feel the responsibilities of a freeman. But, better than all, it placed him in a position to make money by “overtime.” But he had not gone on in this way long before he failed one Saturday to perform his engagement. This led to high words between the master and the slave. Words were on the point of coming to blows. Douglass, when alluding to this circumstance, says, “He raved and swore his determination to get hold of me. I did not allow myself a single word, but was resolved, if he laid the weight of his hand on me, it should be blow for blow. He did not strike me, but told me he would find me in constant employment in future. I thought the matter over during the next day (Sunday), and finally resolved upon the 3rd of September, as the day upon which I would make a second attempt to secure my freedom.”

He says, “Things went on without very slowly indeed, but there was trouble within. It is impossible for me to describe my feelings as the time of my contemplated start drew near. I had a number of warm-hearted friends in Baltimore—friends that I loved almost as I did my life—and the thought of being separated from them for ever was painful beyond expression. It is my opinion that thousands would escape from slavery, who now remain, but for the strong cords of affection that bind them to their friends. The thought of leaving my friends was decidedly the most painful thought with which I had to contend. The love of them was my tender point, and shook my decision more than all things else. Besides the pain of separation, the dread and apprehension of a failure exceeded what I had experienced at my first attempt. The appalling defeat I then sustained returned to torment me. I felt assured that if I failed in this attempt my case would be a hopeless one—it would seal my fate as a slave for ever. I could not hope to get off with anything less than the severest punishment, and being placed beyond the means of escape. It required no very vivid imagination to depict the most frightful scenes through which I should have to pass, in case I failed. The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of, freedom were perpetually before me. It was life and death to me. But I remained firm, and, according to my resolution, on the 3rd day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of any kind.” How he did so, what means he adopted, in what direction he travelled, and by what mode of conveyance, he leaves unexplained, as he considers it very injudicious to publish to the world the manner in which slaves escape, because it only puts masters more on their guard, and renders it more difficult for the slaves to get away.

When speaking on this point, Mr. Douglass says, “I deeply regret the necessity which impels me, to suppress anything of importance connected with my experience with slavery. It would afford me great pleasure indeed, as well as materially add to the interest of my narrative, were I at liberty to gratify a curiosity, which I know exists in the minds of many, by an accurate statement of all the facts pertaining to my most fortunate escape. But I must deprive myself of this pleasure, and the curious the gratification such a statement would afford. I would allow myself to suffer under the greatest imputations which evil-minded men might suggest, rather than exculpate myself, and thereby run the hazard of closing the slightest avenue by which a brother-slave might clear himself of the chains and fetters of slavery.” In this Mr. Douglass acts wisely and well. As a statement of the means of escape would do nothing to enlighten the slave, whilst it would enlighten the master. It stimulates him to greater watchfulness, and enhances his power to capture the runaway. “I would keep the merciless slaveholder,” says Douglass, “profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by slaves. I would leave him to imagine himself surrounded by myriads of invisible tormenters, ever ready to snatch from his infernal grasp his trembling prey. Let him be left to feel his way in the dark; let darkness commensurate with his crime hover over him. And let him feel at every step he takes in pursuit of the flying bondsman, he is running the risk of having his hot brains dashed out by an invisible agency. Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footsteps of our flying brethren.

“I have been frequently asked,” says he, “how I felt when I found myself in a Free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel, when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New York, I said I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions. This state of mind, however, very soon subsided; and I was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness. I was yet liable to be taken back, and subjected to all the tortures of slavery. This in itself was enough to damp the ardour of my enthusiasm. But the loneliness overcame me. There I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands of my own brethren—children of a common Father, and yet I dared not unfold to any one of them my sad condition. I was afraid to speak to any one, for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby fall into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait for the panting fugitive, as the ferocious beasts of the forest lie in wait for their prey. The motto which I adopted when I started from slavery, was this—“Trust no man!” I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every coloured man cause for distrust. It was a most painful situation; and, to understand it, one must needs experience it, or imagine himself in similar circumstances. Let him be a fugitive slave in a strange land—a land given up to be the hunting-ground for slaveholders—whose inhabitants are legalized kidnappers—where he is every moment subjected to the terrible liability of being seized upon by his fellow-men, as the hideous crocodile seizes upon his prey! I say, let him place himself in my situation—without home or friends—without money or credit—wanting shelter, and no one to give it—wanting bread, and no money to buy it, and at the same time, let him feel that he is pursued by merciless men-hunters, and in total darkness as to what to do, where to go, or where to stay—perfectly helpless both as to the means of defence and means of escape—in the midst of plenty, yet suffering the terrible gnawings of hunger—in the midst of houses, yet having no home—among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and half-famished fugitive is only equalled by that with which the monsters of the deep swallow up the helpless fish upon which they subsist—I say, let him be placed in this most trying situation—the situation in which I was placed—then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave.

Fortunately Douglass did not remain long in this situation. He was found out and relieved by Mr. David Ruggles, a man well known for his philanthropy. He told Douglass it would be better for him not to remain in New York, but to remove to New Bedford. This Douglass consented to do; but before he left, he resolved to fulfil an engagement which would materially add to his happiness or misery.

Long before he escaped from Baltimore, he formed an attachment to a free negro woman, whom he resolved to marry when he became free too. While in bondage, he had therefore a double inducement to gain his freedom. He wished it not only for himself, but for the sake of her who was as dear to him as his own life. And his ambition was to obtain his freedom, so that he might show his intense love by his acts, and consecrate the fruits of his free labour to her benefit. We have seen before how capable Douglass was of loving his companions in slavery, and we may imagine how deep and devoted was his passion for her who afterwards became his wife.

He had not been in New York long, before he wrote to her, telling her to follow him immediately. Though he told her of his houseless, homeless condition, she obeyed the affectionate summons, and in a few days was by his side. And a few days after her arrival, they were married by a coloured minister, Mr. J. W. C. Pennington, another fugitive slave.

“Woolly locks and dark complexion Cannot alter nature's claim, Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.”

Almost immediately after their marriage they proceeded to New Bedford. When they arrived they went to the house of Mr. Nathan Johnson, to whom they were introduced by Mr. Ruggles. They now felt a sense of security, and began to prepare themselves for the duties and responsibilities of a life of freedom. On the morning after their arrival, while at the breakfast-table, the question arose as to the name, Douglass should be called by in future. The name given him by his mother was “Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.” He had, however, long dispensed with the two middle names, and was known at Baltimore by the name of Frederick Bailey. He, however, started from that town bearing the assumed name of Stanley. When he got to New York he again changed his name to Frederick Johnson, and was married with that name. But when he got to New Bedford he found that there were so many Johnsons that he thought it necessary to again change his name. He gave Mr. Johnson, with whom he was staying, the privilege of choosing him a name, but told him he must not drop the name of Frederick, as he wished to hold it to preserve a sense of his identity. Mr. Johnson had just been reading the “Lady of the Lake,” and at once suggested that his name should be “Douglass,” and from that time to the present he has been known by the name of Frederick Douglass.

The third day after his arrival at New Bedford he found employment, that of stowing a sloop with a load of oil. It was new, hard and dirty work, but he went to it in earnest, with a glad heart and willing hand. He felt the consciousness of his freedom. He was now in that condition, after which he had so ardently longed, and for which he had braved so many difficulties. The goal of his hopes was now reached, and the yearnings of his ambition realised. He was now his own master. It was a happy moment; the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves. It was the first work, the reward of which was to be entirely his own. There was no Master Auld standing ready, the moment he earned his money, to take it from him. He worked the first day with a pleasure he never before experienced. It was the starting part of a new existence. The reality of life appeared like a golden dream, too beautiful to be true, and too enchanting to endure. It would be impossible for any one who has not actually been a slave, and into whose flesh the cord of oppression has not eaten, to imagine the flood of joy which must have streamed through the soul of such a man as Frederick Douglass when he felt the consciousness of freedom, and when he was not only working for himself, but for his newly married wife.

After he finished his engagement, he went in pursuit of a job of caulking; but such was the prejudice against colour, among the white caulkers, that they refused to work with him, and consequently he could get no employment. He now prepared himself to do any kind of work he could get to do. He says, “There was no work too hard—none too dirty. I was ready to saw wood, shovel coal, carry the hod, sweep the chimney, or roll out casks, all of which I did for nearly three years in New Bedford.”

In about four months after he went to New Bedford, a young man called on him, and inquired if he did not wish to take the “Liberator,” an anti-slavery paper. Douglass said, he should, but being very poor, he said he was unable to pay for it. He, however, finally became a subscriber to the paper, and, week after week, he read it with feelings of intense delight. The paper became his meat and his drink. It set all his soul on fire. Its sympathy for his brethren in bonds—its scathing denunciation of slaveholders, its faithful exposure of slavery, and its powerful attacks upon the upholders of the institution, sent a thrill of joy through his soul such as he never felt before. He soon became impregnated with the anti-slavery spirit, and grew ambitious to serve the cause. He never felt happier than at an anti-slavery meeting. He felt his very existence was more or less wrapped up with those who were less fortunate than himself, and was determined to do his best to render them all his assistance. He accordingly spoke at their meetings, but what he said was said diffidently. But while attending an anti-slavery convention at Nantucket, on the 11th of August, 1841, he felt a strong desire to speak, and being at the same time urged to do so, by Mr. W. C. Coffin, a gentleman who had heard him speak at the coloured peoples' meeting at New Bedford. He got on his legs and commenced in a hesitating tone. He felt even then that he was a slave, and could say but little to edify educated white men. But he was encouraged to proceed, and he had only spoken a few minutes, when he felt a degree of freedom, and said what he desired with considerable case. The impression he made at the meeting has already been described at the opening of this sketch.

From that time to the present he has been engaged in pleading the cause of his brethren in bonds, and his success has been almost unparalleled. He became almost immediately a popular man in his native country. Wherever he went he gathered round him very large audiences. These audiences he filled with enthusiasm. The anti-slavery party in the Northern States found that they had brought out no common man; but one who, if no social and political obstacles were in his way, would reflect enduring lustre on his race.

His fame soon reached this country, and here he came, four years after he gave his inaugural address in Nantucket. He produced a similar sensation wherever he went in England as he did in America. He addressed large meetings in all our principal cities and towns, and stirred up a feeling in England against slavery in America as was never done by any other man. He remained with us about twelve months. But as he was liable, as soon as he returned to be snatched back to slavery, some of the most benevolent of our countrymen—among whom of course figured quakers—subscribed sufficient money to purchase his freedom. And before he reached his country, his legal master was paid the worth of his property in gold subscribed by British benevolence.

His friends were not satisfied with merely rendering him free and independent as soon as he reached home, but they desired that his extraordinary abilities should be turned to the best account. The result was the 500l. more were subscribed to enable him to commence an anti-slavery paper when he got back.

Frederick Douglass came to this country a little after the Scottish Free Church had sent a deputation to America to solicit subscriptions to build new churches and chapels. That deputation perpetrated the blunder of going to the slave-holding States, and collecting money from slave-holders to build free churches in Scotland. By doing this they tarnished their otherwise bright reputation, and brought upon themselves everlasting dishonour. And never will they drive away the deep disgrace until they “send back the money.” This they were and are too blind or too obstinate, or perhaps the both combined, to do, and consequently, they render themselves liable to be condemned by the Christian world as having performed an act which, while it encouraged the slave-holder in his internal baseness, culminates into a crime before high Heaven. Even now it is not too late to “send back the money.” Frederick Douglass, while he was with us, as may be seen in the speech of his which we give in the Appendix, showed the infamy of this transaction of the Scottish Free Church, and in doing so, deserved well of his race.

After he performed his mission here, he prepared to start for America. He went to Liverpool, and paid his passage-money as saloon passenger. He no sooner went on board than he found the American prejudice against colour. The Yankees on board, true to their ignorance and their prejudices, refused to be put on an equality with a black man.

When Douglass arrived in America he was warmly welcomed by his friends and others who were aware of the reputation he gained in this country; and the anti-slavery convention of New England, which was held a short time after, placed sufficient confidence in his character and abilities, that they elected him the president of the convention. If the slave-holders had minds and hearts as impressible as men ordinarily, they would have felt humiliated when they saw one who was so short a time before in bondage, elevated to such a distinguished position.

Almost, immediately after Douglass started the “North Star,” an uncompromising anti-slavery paper, which has flourished ever since, though it is now called Frederick Douglass' Paper. This paper is taken in by many families in this country Besides writing in this and other papers and magazines, he employs himself in lecturing and attending conventions, and in every other way in his power consecrating his great abilities to the deliverance of his race.

JAMES PENNINGTON, THE FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH. CHAPTER I. THE MASTER AND HIS SLAVES.

In a fertile valley, bounded in the cast by the primeval forest, which rose by successive platforms to the summit of a mountain ridge; and on the other by a continuous, though abrupt slope of the greenest sward, was situated an extensive tobacco and sheep farm, where industry plied her numerous arts, and nature favoured man's intentions. It was in the State of Maryland, in North America, not far removed from the eastern shore. The farm was one of the finest in the State, its master was wealthy and enterprising, the land fruitful and the climate favourable to agriculture and as on every hand the conquest of the soil proceeded, the welcom