It can easily be understood that such a man as Douglass, thrown thus
into stimulating daily intercourse with some of the brightest minds
of his generation, all animated by a high and noble enthusiasm for
liberty and humanity,--such men as Garrison and Phillips and Gay
and Monroe and many others,--should have developed with remarkable
rapidity those reserves of character and intellect which slavery had
kept in repression. And yet, while aware of his wonderful talent for
oratory, he never for a moment let this knowledge turn his head or
obscure the consciousness that he had brought with him out of slavery
of some of the disabilities of that status. Naturally, his expanding
intelligence sought a wider range of expression; and his simple
narrative of the wrongs of slavery gave way sometimes to a discussion
of its philosophy. His abolitionist friends would have preferred
him to stick a little more closely to the old line,--to furnish the
experience while they provided the argument. But the strong will that
slavery had not been able to break was not always amenable to politic
suggestion. Douglass's style and vocabulary and logic improved so
rapidly that people began to question his having been a slave.
His appearance, speech, and manner differed so little in material
particulars from those of his excellent exemplars that many people
were sceptical of his antecedents. Douglass had, since his escape from
slavery, carefully kept silent about the place he came from and his
master's name and the manner of his escape, for the very good
reason that their revelation would have informed his master of his
whereabouts and rendered his freedom precarious; for the fugitive
slave law was in force, and only here and there could local public
sentiment have prevented its operation. Confronted with the
probability of losing his usefulness, as the "awful example," Douglass
took the bold step of publishing in the spring of 1845 the narrative
of his experience as a slave, giving names of people and places, and
dates as nearly as he could recall them. His abolitionist friends
doubted the expediency of this step; and Wendell Phillips advised him
to throw the manuscript into the fire, declaring that the government
of Massachusetts had neither the power nor the will to protect him
from the consequences of his daring.
The pamphlet was widely read. It was written in a style of graphic
simplicity, and was such an _exposé_ of slavery as exasperated its
jealous supporters and beneficiaries. Douglass soon had excellent
reasons to fear that he would be recaptured by force or guile and
returned to slavery or a worse fate. The prospect was not an alluring
one; and hence, to avoid an involuntary visit to the scenes of his
childhood, he sought liberty beyond the sea, where men of his color
have always enjoyed a larger freedom than in their native land.
In 1845 Douglass set sail for England on board the _Cambria_, of the
Cunard Line, accompanied by James N. Buffum, a prominent abolitionist
of Lynn, Massachusetts. On the same steamer were the Hutchinson
family, who lent their sweet songs to the anti-slavery crusade.
Douglass's color rendered him ineligible for cabin passage, and he was
relegated to the steerage. Nevertheless, he became quite the lion of
the vessel, made the steerage fashionable, was given the freedom
of the ship, and invited to lecture on slavery. This he did to the
satisfaction of all the passengers except a few young men from New
Orleans and Georgia, who, true to the instincts of their caste, made
his strictures on the South a personal matter, and threatened to throw
him overboard. Their zeal was diminished by an order of the captain to
put them in irons. They sulked in their cabins, however, and rushed
into print when they reached Liverpool, thus giving Douglass the very
introduction he needed to the British public, which was promptly
informed, by himself and others, of the true facts in regard to the
steamer speech and the speaker.