After my wife had a little recovered
herself, she threw off the disguise and assumed her
own apparel. We then stepped into the sitting-room,
and asked to see the landlord. The man came in,
but he seemed thunderstruck on finding a fugitive
slave and his wife, instead of a “young cotton
planter and his nigger.” As his eyes travelled
round the room, he said to me, “Where is your
master?” I pointed him out. The man gravely
replied, “I am not joking, I really wish to see
your master.” I pointed him out again,
but at first he could not believe his eyes; he said
“he knew that was not the gentleman that came
with me.”
But, after some conversation, we satisfied
him that we were fugitive slaves, and had just escaped
in the manner I have described. We asked him
if he thought it would be safe for us to stop in Philadelphia.
He said he thought not, but he would call in some
persons who knew more about the laws than himself.
He then went out, and kindly brought in several of
the leading abolitionists of the city, who gave us
a most hearty and friendly welcome amongst them.
As it was in December, and also as we had just left
a very warm climate, they advised us not to go to
Canada as we had intended, but to settle at Boston
in the United States. It is true that the constitution
of the Republic has always guaranteed the slaveholders
the right to come into any of the so-called free States,
and take their fugitives back to southern Egypt.
But through the untiring, uncompromising, and manly
efforts of Mr. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Theodore
Parker, and a host of other noble abolitionists of
Boston and the neighbourhood, public opinion in Massachusetts
had become so much opposed to slavery and to kidnapping,
that it was almost impossible for any one to take a
fugitive slave out of that State.
So we took the advice of our good
Philadelphia friends, and settled at Boston.
I shall have something to say about our sojourn there
presently.
Among other friends we met with at
Philadelphia, was Robert Purves, Esq., a well educated
and wealthy coloured gentleman, who introduced us
to Mr. Barkley Ivens, a member of the Society of Friends,
and a noble and generous-hearted farmer, who lived
at some distance in the country.
This good Samaritan at once invited
us to go and stop quietly with his family, till my
wife could somewhat recover from the fearful reaction
of the past journey. We most gratefully accepted
the invitation, and at the time appointed we took
a steamer to a place up the Delaware river, where
our new and dear friend met us with his snug little
cart, and took us to his happy home. This was
the first act of great and disinterested kindness
we had ever received from a white person.
The gentleman was not of the fairest
complexion, and therefore, as my wife was not in the
room when I received the information respecting him
and his anti-slavery character, she thought of course
he was a quadroon like herself. But on arriving
at the house, and finding out her mistake, she became
more nervous and timid than ever.
As the cart came into the yard, the
dear good old lady, and her three charming and affectionate
daughters, all came to the door to meet us. We
got out, and the gentleman said, “Go in, and
make yourselves at home; I will see after the baggage.”
But my wife was afraid to approach them. She
stopped in the yard, and said to me, “William,
I thought we were coming among coloured people?”
I replied, “It is all right; these are the
same.” “No,” she said, “it
is not all right, and I am not going to stop here;
I have no confidence whatever in white people, they
are only trying to get us back to slavery.”
She turned round and said, “I am going right
off.” The old lady then came out, with
her sweet, soft, and winning smile, shook her heartily
by the hand, and kindly said, “How art thou,
my dear? We are all very glad to see thee and
thy husband. Come in, to the fire; I dare say
thou art cold and hungry after thy journey.”
We went in, and the young ladies asked
if she would like to go upstairs and “fix”
herself before tea. My wife said, “No,
I thank you; I shall only stop a little while.”
“But where art thou going this cold night?”
said Mr. Ivens, who had just stepped in. “I
don’t know,” was the reply. “Well,
then,” he continued, “I think thou hadst
better take off thy things and sit near the fire;
tea will soon be ready.” “Yes, come,
Ellen,” said Mrs. Ivens, “let me assist
thee;” (as she commenced undoing my wife’s
bonnet-strings;) “don’t be frightened,
Ellen, I shall not hurt a single hair of thy head.
We have heard with much pleasure of the marvellous
escape of thee and thy husband, and deeply sympathise
with thee in all that thou hast undergone. I
don’t wonder at thee, poor thing, being timid;
but thou needs not fear us; we would as soon send
one of our own daughters into slavery as thee; so thou
mayest make thyself quite at ease!” These soft
and soothing words fell like balm upon my wife’s
unstrung nerves, and melted her to tears; her fears
and prejudices vanished, and from that day she has
firmly believed that there are good and bad persons
of every shade of complexion.
After seeing Sally Ann and Jacob,
two coloured domestics, my wife felt quite at home.
After partaking of what Mrs. Stowe’s Mose and
Pete called a “busting supper,” the ladies
wished to know whether we could read. On learning
we could not, they said if we liked they would teach
us. To this kind offer, of course, there was
no objection. But we looked rather knowingly
at each other, as much as to say that they would have
rather a hard task to cram anything into our thick
and matured skulls.
However, all hands set to and quickly
cleared away the tea-things, and the ladies and their
good brother brought out the spelling and copy books
and slates, &c., and commenced with their new and green
pupils. We had, by stratagem, learned the alphabet
while in slavery, but not the writing characters;
and, as we had been such a time learning so little,
we at first felt that it was a waste of time for any
one at our ages to undertake to learn to read and
write. But, as the ladies were so anxious that
we should learn, and so willing to teach us, we concluded
to give our whole minds to the work, and see what could
be done. By so doing, at the end of the three
weeks we remained with the good family we could spell
and write our names quite legibly. They all
begged us to stop longer; but, as we were not safe
in the State of Pennsylvania, and also as we wished
to commence doing something for a livelihood, we did
not remain.
When the time arrived for us to leave
for Boston, it was like parting with our relatives.
We have since met with many very kind and hospitable
friends, both in America and England; but we have never
been under a roof where we were made to feel more
at home, or where the inmates took a deeper interest
in our well-being, than Mr. Barkley Ivens and his
dear family. May God ever bless them, and preserve
each one from every reverse of fortune!
We finally, as I have stated, settled
at Boston, where we remained nearly two years, I employed
as cabinet-maker and furniture broker, and my wife
at her needle; and, as our little earnings in slavery
were not all spent on the journey, we were getting
on very well, and would have made money, if we had
not been compelled by the General Government, at the
bidding of the slaveholders, to break up business,
and fly from under the Stars and Stripes to save our
liberties and our lives.
In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive
Slave Bill, an enactment too infamous to have been
thought of or tolerated by any people in the world,
except the unprincipled and tyrannical Yankees.
The following are a few of the leading features of
the above law; which requires, under heavy penalties,
that the inhabitants of the free States should
not only refuse food and shelter to a starving, hunted
human being, but also should assist, if called upon
by the authorities, to seize the unhappy fugitive
and send him back to slavery.
In no case is a person’s evidence
admitted in Court, in defence of his liberty, when
arrested under this law.
If the judge decides that the prisoner
is a slave, he gets ten dollars; but if he sets him
at liberty, he only receives five.
After the prisoner has been sentenced
to slavery, he is handed over to the United States
Marshal, who has the power, at the expense of the
General Government, to summon a sufficient force to
take the poor creature back to slavery, and to the
lash, from which he fled.
Our old masters sent agents to Boston
after us. They took out warrants, and placed
them in the hands of the United States Marshal to
execute. But the following letter from our highly
esteemed and faithful friend, the Rev. Samuel May,
of Boston, to our equally dear and much lamented friend,
Dr. Estlin of Bristol, will show why we were not taken
into custody.
“21, Cornhill, Boston, “November 6th,
1850.
“My dear Mr Estlin,
“I trust that in God’s
good providence this letter will be handed to you
in safety by our good friends, William and Ellen Craft.
They have lived amongst us about two years, and have
proved themselves worthy, in all respects, of our
confidence and regard. The laws of this republican
and Christian land (tell it not in Moscow, nor in
Constantinople) regard them only as slaves chattels personal
property. But they nobly vindicated their title
and right to freedom, two years since, by winning
their way to it; at least, so they thought. But
now, the slave power, with the aid of Daniel Webster
and a band of lesser traitors, has enacted a law,
which puts their dearly-bought liberties in the most
imminent peril; holds out a strong temptation to every
mercenary and unprincipled ruffian to become their
kidnapper; and has stimulated the slaveholders generally
to such desperate acts for the recovery of their fugitive
property, as have never before been enacted in the
history of this government.
“Within a fortnight, two fellows
from Macon, Georgia, have been in Boston for the purpose
of arresting our friends William and Ellen. A
writ was served against them from the United States
District Court; but it was not served by the United
States Marshal; why not, is not certainly known:
perhaps through fear, for a general feeling of indignation,
and a cool determination not to allow this young couple
to be taken from Boston into slavery, was aroused,
and pervaded the city. It is understood that
one of the judges told the Marshal that he would not
be authorised in breaking the door of Craft’s
house. Craft kept himself close within the house,
armed himself, and awaited with remarkable composure
the event. Ellen, in the meantime, had been taken
to a retired place out of the city. The Vigilance
Committee (appointed at a late meeting in Fanueil
Hall) enlarged their numbers, held an almost permanent
session, and appointed various subcommittees to act
in different ways. One of these committees called
repeatedly on Messrs. Hughes and Knight, the slave-catchers,
and requested and advised them to leave the city.
At first they peremptorily refused to do so, ’’till
they got hold of the niggers.’ On complaint
of different persons, these two fellows were several
times arrested, carried before one of our county courts,
and held to bail on charges of ’conspiracy to
kidnap,’ and of ‘defamation,’ in
calling William and Ellen ‘slaves.’
At length, they became so alarmed, that they left
the city by an indirect route, evading the vigilance
of many persons who were on the look-out for them.
Hughes, at one time, was near losing his life at the
hands of an infuriated coloured man. While these
men remained in the city, a prominent whig gentleman
sent word to William Craft, that if he would submit
peaceably to an arrest, he and his wife should be bought
from their owners, cost what it might. Craft
replied, in effect, that he was in a measure the representative
of all the other fugitives in Boston, some 200 or
300 in number; that, if he gave up, they would all
be at the mercy of the slave-catchers, and must fly
from the city at any sacrifice; and that, if his freedom
could be bought for two cents, he would not consent
to compromise the matter in such a way. This
event has stirred up the slave spirit of the country,
south and north; the United States government is determined
to try its hand in enforcing the Fugitive Slave law;
and William and Ellen Craft would be prominent objects
of the slaveholders’ vengeance. Under these
circumstances, it is the almost unanimous opinion
of their best friends, that they should quit America
as speedily as possible, and seek an asylum in England!
Oh! shame, shame upon us, that Americans, whose fathers
fought against Great Britain, in order to be free,
should have to acknowledge this disgraceful fact!
God gave us a fair and goodly heritage in this land,
but man has cursed it with his devices and crimes against
human souls and human rights. Is America the
’land of the free, and the home of the brave?’
God knows it is not; and we know it too. A brave
young man and a virtuous young woman must fly the
American shores, and seek, under the shadow of the
British throne, the enjoyment of ’life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.’
“But I must pursue my plain,
sad story. All day long, I have been busy planning
a safe way for William and Ellen to leave Boston.
We dare not allow them to go on board a vessel, even
in the port of Boston; for the writ is yet in the
Marshal’s hands, and he may be waiting an
opportunity to serve it; so I am expecting to accompany
them to-morrow to Portland, Maine, which is beyond
the reach of the Marshal’s authority; and there
I hope to see them on board a British steamer.
“This letter is written to introduce
them to you. I know your infirm health; but
I am sure, if you were stretched on your bed in your
last illness, and could lift your hand at all, you
would extend it to welcome these poor hunted fellow-creatures.
Henceforth, England is their nation and their home.
It is with real regret for our personal loss in their
departure, as well as burning shame for the land that
is not worthy of them, that we send them away, or
rather allow them to go. But, with all the resolute
courage they have shown in a most trying hour, they
themselves see it is the part of a foolhardy rashness
to attempt to stay here longer.
“I must close; and with many
renewed thanks for all your kind words and deeds towards
us,
“I am, very respectfully yours,
“Samuel may, Jun.”
Our old masters, having heard how
their agents were treated at Boston, wrote to Mr.
Filmore, who was then President of the States, to know
what he could do to have us sent back to slavery.
Mr. Filmore said that we should be returned.
He gave instructions for military force to be sent
to Boston to assist the officers in making the arrest.
Therefore we, as well as our friends (among whom was
George Thompson, Esq., late M.P. for the Tower Hamlets the
slave’s long-tried, self-sacrificing friend,
and eloquent advocate) thought it best, at any sacrifice,
to leave the mock-free Republic, and come to a country
where we and our dear little ones can be truly free. “No
one daring to molest or make us afraid.”
But, as the officers were watching every vessel that
left the port to prevent us from escaping, we had to
take the expensive and tedious overland route to Halifax.
We shall always cherish the deepest
feelings of gratitude to the Vigilance Committee of
Boston (upon which were many of the leading abolitionists),
and also to our numerous friends, for the very kind
and noble manner in which they assisted us to preserve
our liberties and to escape from Boston, as it were
like Lot from Sodom, to a place of refuge, and finally
to this truly free and glorious country; where no
tyrant, let his power be ever so absolute over his
poor trembling victims at home, dare come and lay
violent hands upon us or upon our dear little boys
(who had the good fortune to be born upon British
soil), and reduce us to the legal level of the beast
that perisheth. Oh! may God bless the thousands
of unflinching, disinterested abolitionists of America,
who are labouring through evil as well as through
good report, to cleanse their country’s escutcheon
from the foul and destructive blot of slavery, and
to restore to every bondman his God-given rights;
and may God ever smile upon England and upon England’s
good, much-beloved, and deservedly-honoured Queen,
for the generous protection that is given to unfortunate
refugees of every rank, and of every colour and clime.
On the passing of the Fugitive Slave
Bill, the following learned doctors, as well as a
host of lesser traitors, came out strongly in its
defence.
The Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, an eminent
Presbyterian Clergyman of New York, well known in
this country by his religious publications, declared
from the pulpit that, “if by one prayer he could
liberate every slave in the world he would not dare
to offer it.”
The Rev. Dr. Joel Parker, of Philadelphia,
in the course of a discussion on the nature of Slavery,
says, “What, then, are the evils inseparable
from slavery? There is not one that is not equally
inseparable from depraved human nature in other lawful
relations.”
The Rev. Moses Stuart, D.D., (late
Professor in the Theological College of Andover),
in his vindication of this Bill, reminds his readers
that “many Southern slaveholders are true Christians.”
That “sending back a fugitive to them is not
like restoring one to an idolatrous people.”
That “though we may pity the fugitive, yet
the Mosaic Law does not authorize the rejection of
the claims of the slaveholders to their stolen or
strayed property.”
The Rev. Dr. Spencer, of Brooklyn,
New York, has come forward in support of the “Fugitive
Slave Bill,” by publishing a sermon entitled
the “Religious Duty of Obedience to the Laws,”
which has elicited the highest encomiums from Dr.
Samuel H. Cox, the Presbyterian minister of Brooklyn
(notorious both in this country and America for his
sympathy with the slaveholder).
The Rev. W. M. Rogers, an orthodox
minister of Boston, delivered a sermon in which he
says, “When the slave asks me to stand between
him and his master, what does he ask? He asks
me to murder a nation’s life; and I will not
do it, because I have a conscience, because
there is a God.” He proceeds to affirm
that if resistance to the carrying out of the “Fugitive
Slave Law” should lead the magistracy to call
the citizens to arms, their duty was to obey and “if
ordered to take human life, in the name of God to
take it;” and he concludes by admonishing the
fugitives to “hearken to the Word of God, and
to count their own masters worthy of all honour.”
The Rev. William Crowell, of Waterfield,
State of Maine, printed a Thanksgiving Sermon of the
same kind, in which he calls upon his hearers not
to allow “excessive sympathies for a few hundred
fugitives to blind them so that they may risk increased
suffering to the millions already in chains.”
The Rev. Dr. Taylor, an Episcopal
Clergyman of New Haven, Connecticut, made a speech
at a Union Meeting, in which he deprecates the agitation
on the law, and urges obedience to it; asking, “Is
that article in the Constitution contrary to the law
of Nature, of nations, or to the will of God?
Is it so? Is there a shadow of reason for saying
it? I have not been able to discover it.
Have I not shown you it is lawful to deliver up,
in compliance with the laws, fugitive slaves, for the
high, the great, the momentous interests of those
[Southern] States?”
The Right Rev. Bishop Hopkins, of
Vermont, in a Lecture at Lockport, says, “It
was warranted by the Old Testament;” and inquires,
“What effect had the Gospel in doing away with
slavery? None whatever.” Therefore
he argues, as it is expressly permitted by the Bible,
it does not in itself involve any sin; but that every
Christian is authorised by the Divine Law to own slaves,
provided they were not treated with unnecessary cruelty.
The Rev. Orville Dewey, D.D., of the
Unitarian connexion, maintained in his lectures that
the safety of the Union is not to be hazarded for the
sake of the African race. He declares that, for
his part, he would send his own brother or child into
slavery, if needed to preserve the Union between the
free and the slaveholding States; and, counselling
the slave to similar magnanimity, thus exhorts him: “Your
right to be free is not
absolute, unqualified, irrespective
of all consequences. If my espousal
of your claim is likely to involve your race and mine
together in disasters infinitely greater than your
personal servitude, then you ought not to be free.
In such a case personal rights ought to be sacrificed
to the general good. You yourself ought to see
this, and be willing to suffer for a while one
for many.”
If the Doctor is prepared, he is quite
at liberty to sacrifice his “personal rights
to the general good.” But, as I have suffered
a long time in slavery, it is hardly fair for the
Doctor to advise me to go back. According to
his showing, he ought rather to take my place.
That would be practically carrying out his logic, as
respects “suffering awhile one for
many.”
In fact, so eager were they to prostrate
themselves before the great idol of slavery, and,
like Balaam, to curse instead of blessing the people
whom God had brought out of bondage, that they in bring
up obsolete passages from the Old Testament to justify
their downward course, overlooked, or would not see,
the following verses, which show very clearly, according
to the Doctor’s own textbook, that the slaves
have a right to run away, and that it is unscriptural
for any one to send them back.
In the 23rd chapter of Deuteronomy,
15th and 16th verses, it is thus written: “Thou
shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which
is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall
dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which
he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh
him best: thou shalt not oppress him.”
“Hide the outcast. Bewray
not him that wandereth. Let mine outcasts dwell
with thee. Be thou a covert to them from the
face of the spoiler.” (Isa. xv, 4.)
The great majority of the American
ministers are not content with uttering sentences
similar to the above, or remaining wholly indifferent
to the cries of the poor bondman; but they do all they
can to blast the reputation, and to muzzle the mouths,
of the few good men who dare to beseech the God of
mercy “to loose the bonds of wickedness, to
undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free.”
These reverend gentlemen pour a terrible cannonade
upon “Jonah,” for refusing to carry God’s
message against Nineveh, and tell us about the whale
in which he was entombed; while they utterly overlook
the existence of the whales which trouble their republican
waters, and know not that they themselves are the
“Jonahs” who threaten to sink their ship
of state, by steering in an unrighteous direction.
We are told that the whale vomited up the runaway
prophet. This would not have seemed so strange,
had it been one of the above lukewarm Doctors of Divinity
whom he had swallowed; for even a whale might find
such a morsel difficult of digestion.
“I venerate the man whose heart
is warm,
Whose hands are pure; whose doctrines
and whose life
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause.”
“But grace abused brings forth the
foulest deeds,
As richest soil the most luxuriant weeds.”
I must now leave the reverend gentlemen
in the hands of Him who knows best how to deal with
a recreant ministry.
I do not wish it to be understood
that all the ministers of the States are of the Balaam
stamp. There are those who are as uncompromising
with slaveholders as Moses was with Pharaoh, and, like
Daniel, will never bow down before the great false
God that has been set up.
On arriving at Portland, we found
that the steamer we intended to take had run into
a schooner the previous night, and was lying up for
repairs; so we had to wait there, in fearful suspense,
for two or three days. During this time, we
had the honour of being the guest of the late and
much lamented Daniel Oliver, Esq., one of the best
and most hospitable men in the State. By simply
fulfilling the Scripture injunction, to take in the
stranger, &c., he ran the risk of incurring a penalty
of 2,000 dollars, and twelve months’ imprisonment.
But neither the Fugitive Slave Law,
nor any other Satanic enactment, can ever drive the
spirit of liberty and humanity out of such noble and
generous-hearted men.
May God ever bless his dear widow,
and eventually unite them in His courts above!
We finally got off to St. John’s,
New Brunswick, where we had to wait two days for the
steamer that conveyed us to Windsor, Nova Scotia.
On going into a hotel at St. John’s,
we met the butler in the hall, to whom I said, “We
wish to stop here to-night.” He turned
round, scratching his head, evidently much put about.
But thinking that my wife was white, he replied,
“We have plenty of room for the lady, but I
don’t know about yourself; we never take in coloured
folks.” “Oh, don’t trouble
about me,” I said; “if you have room for
the lady, that will do; so please have the luggage
taken to a bed-room.” Which was immediately
done, and my wife went upstairs into the apartment.
After taking a little walk in the
town, I returned, and asked to see the “lady.”
On being conducted to the little sitting-room, where
she then was, I entered without knocking, much to
the surprise of the whole house. The “lady”
then rang the bell, and ordered dinner for two.
“Dinner for two, mum!” exclaimed the waiter,
as he backed out of the door. “Yes, for
two,” said my wife. In a little while the
stout, red-nosed butler, whom we first met, knocked
at the door. I called out, “Come in.”
On entering, he rolled his whisky eyes at me, and
then at my wife, and said, in a very solemn tone,
“Did you order dinner for two, mum?” “Yes,
for two,” my wife again replied. This confused
the chubby butler more than ever; and, as the landlord
was not in the house, he seemed at a loss what to
do.
When dinner was ready, the maid came
in and said, “Please, mum, the Missis wishes
to know whether you will have dinner up now, or wait
till your friend arrives?” “I will have
it up at once, if you please.” “Thank
you, mum,” continued the maid, and out she glided.
After a good deal of giggling in the
passage, some one said, “You are in for it,
butler, after all; so you had better make the best
of a bad job.” But before dinner was sent
up, the landlord returned, and having heard from the
steward of the steamer by which we came that we were
bound for England, the proprietor’s native country,
he treated us in the most respectful manner.
At the above house, the boots (whose
name I forget) was a fugitive slave, a very intelligent
and active man, about forty-five years of age.
Soon after his marriage, while in slavery, his bride
was sold away from him, and he could never learn where
the poor creature dwelt. So after remaining single
for many years, both before and after his escape,
and never expecting to see again, nor even to hear
from, his long-lost partner, he finally married a
woman at St. John’s. But, poor fellow,
as he was passing down the street one day, he met a
woman; at the first glance they nearly recognized
each other; they both turned round and stared, and
unconsciously advanced, till she screamed and flew
into his arms. Her first words were, “Dear,
are you married?” On his answering in the affirmative,
she shrank from his embrace, hung her head, and wept.
A person who witnessed this meeting told me it was
most affecting.
This couple knew nothing of each other’s
escape or whereabouts. The woman had escaped
a few years before to the free States, by secreting
herself in the hold of a vessel; but as they tried
to get her back to bondage, she fled to New Brunswick
for that protection which her native country was too
mean to afford.
The man at once took his old wife
to see his new one, who was also a fugitive slave,
and as they all knew the workings of the infamous
system of slavery, the could (as no one else can,)
sympathise with each other’s misfortune.
According to the rules of slavery,
the man and his first wife were already divorced,
but not morally; and therefore it was arranged between
the three that he should live only with the lastly
married wife, and allow the other one so much a week,
as long as she requested his assistance.
After staying at St. John’s
two days, the steamer arrived, which took us to Windsor,
where we found a coach bound for Halifax. Prejudice
against colour forced me on the top in the rain.
On arriving within about seven miles of the town,
the coach broke down and was upset. I fell upon
the big crotchety driver, whose head stuck in the mud;
and as he “always objected to niggers riding
inside with white folks,” I was not particularly
sorry to see him deeper in the mire than myself.
All of us were scratched and bruised more or less.
After the passengers had crawled out as best they
could, we all set off, and paddled through the deep
mud and cold and rain, to Halifax.
On leaving Boston, it was our intention
to reach Halifax at least two or three days before
the steamer from Boston touched there, en route for
Liverpool; but, having been detained so long at Portland
and St. John’s, we had the misfortune to arrive
at Halifax at dark, just two hours after the steamer
had gone; consequently we had to wait there a fortnight,
for the Cambria.
The coach was patched up, and reached
Halifax with the luggage, soon after the passengers
arrived. The only respectable hotel that was
then in the town had suspended business, and was closed;
so we went to the inn, opposite the market, where
the coach stopped: a most miserable, dirty hole
it was.
Knowing that we were still under the
influence of the low Yankee prejudice, I sent my wife
in with the other passengers, to engage a bed for
herself and husband. I stopped outside in the
rain till the coach came up. If I had gone in
and asked for a bed they would have been quite full.
But as they thought my wife was white, she had no
difficulty in securing apartments, into which the luggage
was afterwards carried. The landlady, observing
that I took an interest in the baggage, became somewhat
uneasy, and went into my wife’s room, and said
to her, “Do you know the dark man downstairs?”
“Yes, he is my husband.” “Oh!
I mean the black man the nigger?”
“I quite understand you; he is my husband.”
“My God!” exclaimed the woman as she
flounced out and banged to the door. On going
upstairs, I heard what had taken place: but,
as we were there, and did not mean to leave that night,
we did not disturb ourselves. On our ordering
tea, the landlady sent word back to say that we must
take it in the kitchen, or in our bed-room, as she
had no other room for “niggers.” We
replied that we were not particular, and that they
could sent it up to our room, which they
did.
After the pro-slavery persons who
were staying there heard that we were in, the whole
house became agitated, and all sorts of oaths and fearful
threats were heaped upon the “d d
niggers, for coming among white folks.”
Some of them said they would not stop there a minute
if there was another house to go to.
The mistress came up the next morning
to know how long we wished to stop. We said
a fortnight. “Oh! dear me, it is impossible
for us to accommodate you, and I think you had better
go: you must understand, I have no prejudice
myself; I think a good deal of the coloured people,
and have always been their friend; but if you stop
here we shall lose all our customers, which we can’t
do nohow.” We said we were glad to hear
that she had “no prejudice,” and was such
a staunch friend to the coloured people. We
also informed her that we would be sorry for her “customers”
to leave on our account; and as it was not our intention
to interfere with anyone, it was foolish for them
to be frightened away. However, if she would
get us a comfortable place, we would be glad to leave.
The landlady said she would go out and try.
After spending the whole morning in canvassing the
town, she came to our room and said, “I have
been from one end of the place to the other, but everybody
is full.” Having a little foretaste of
the vulgar prejudice of the town, we did not wonder
at this result. However, the landlady gave me
the address of some respectable coloured families,
whom she thought, “under the circumstances,”
might be induced to take us. And, as we were
not at all comfortable being compelled
to sit, eat and sleep, in the same small room we
were quite willing to change our quarters.
I called upon the Rev. Mr. Cannady,
a truly good-hearted Christian man, who received us
at a word; and both he and his kind lady treated us
handsomely, and for a nominal charge.
My wife and myself were both unwell
when we left Boston, and, having taken fresh cold
on the journey to Halifax, we were laid up there under
the doctor’s care, nearly the whole fortnight.
I had much worry about getting tickets, for they
baffled us shamefully at the Cunard office. They
at first said that they did not book till the steamer
came; which was not the fact. When I called
again, they said they knew the steamer would come
full from Boston, and therefore we had “better
try to get to Liverpool by other means.”
Other mean Yankee excuses were made; and it was not
till an influential gentleman, to whom Mr. Francis
Jackson, of Boston, kindly gave us a letter, went
and rebuked them, that we were able to secure our
tickets. So when we went on board my wife was
very poorly, and was also so ill on the voyage that
I did not believe she could live to see Liverpool.
However, I am thankful to say she
arrived; and, after laying up at Liverpool very ill
for two or three weeks, gradually recovered.
It was not until we stepped upon the
shore at Liverpool that we were free from every slavish
fear.
We raised our thankful hearts to Heaven,
and could have knelt down, like the Neapolitan exiles,
and kissed the soil; for we felt that from slavery
“Heaven sure had kept this spot
of earth uncurs’d,
To show how all things were created first.”
In a few days after we landed, the
Rev. Francis Bishop and his lady came and invited
us to be their guests; to whose unlimited kindness
and watchful care my wife owes, in a great degree,
her restoration to health.
We enclosed our letter from the Rev.
Mr. May to Mr. Estlin, who at once wrote to invite
us to his house at Bristol. On arriving there,
both Mr. and Miss Estlin received us as cordially
as did our first good Quaker friends in Pennsylvania.
It grieves me much to have to mention that he is
no more. Everyone who knew him can truthfully
say
“Peace to the memory of a man of
worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too!
Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears
When gay Good-nature dresses her in smiles.”
It was principally through the extreme
kindness of Mr. Estlin, the Right Hon. Lady Noel Byron,
Miss Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Reid, Miss Sturch, and
a few other good friends, that my wife and myself were
able to spend a short time at a school in this country,
to acquire a little of that education which we were
so shamefully deprived of while in the house of bondage.
The school is under the supervision of the Misses
Lushington, D.C.L. During our stay at the school
we received the greatest attention from every one;
and I am particularly indebted to Thomas Wilson, Esq.,
of Bradmore House, Chiswick, (who was then the master,)
for the deep interest he took in trying to get me on
in my studies. We shall ever fondly and gratefully
cherish the memory of our endeared and departed friend,
Mr. Estlin. We, as well as the Anti-Slavery
cause, lost a good friend in him. However, if
departed spirits in Heaven are conscious of the wickedness
of this world, and are allowed to speak, he will never
fail to plead in the presence of the angelic host,
and before the great and just Judge, for down-trodden
and outraged humanity.
“Therefore I cannot think thee wholly
gone;
The better part of thee is
with us still;
Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath
thrown,
And only freer wrestles with the
ill.
“Thou livest in the life of all
good things;
What words thou spak’st
for Freedom shall not die;
Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath
wings
To soar where hence thy hope could
hardly fly.
“And often, from that other world,
on this
Some gleams from great souls gone
before may shine,
To shed on struggling hearts a clearer
bliss,
And clothe the Right with lustre
more divine.
“Farewell! good man, good angel
now! this hand
Soon, like thine own, shall
lose its cunning, too;
Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered
stand,
Then leap to thread the free unfathomed
blue.”
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
In the preceding pages I have not
dwelt upon the great barbarities which are practised
upon the slaves; because I wish to present the system
in its mildest form, and to show that the “tender
mercies of the wicked are cruel.” But
I do now, however, most solemnly declare, that a very
large majority of the American slaves are over-worked,
under-fed, and frequently unmercifully flogged.
I have often seen slaves tortured
in every conceivable manner. I have seen him
hunted down and torn by bloodhounds. I have seen
them shamefully beaten, and branded with hot irons.
I have seen them hunted, and even burned alive at
the stake, frequently for offences that would be applauded
if committed by white persons for similar purposes.
In short, it is well known in England,
if not all over the world, that the Americans, as
a people, are notoriously mean and cruel towards all
coloured persons, whether they are bond or free.
“Oh, tyrant,
thou who sleepest
On a volcano, from whose pent-up wrath,
Already some red flashes bursting up,
Beware!”