SEEKS REFUGE IN ENGLAND
When Frederick Douglass had concluded his remarkable tour from Vermont
to Indiana in the interest of the anti-slavery conventions, he was one
of the most popular and widely talked of men on the American platform.
The public everywhere was eager to learn everything possible about the
“runaway slave” who was winning his place among the foremost of American
orators. Interest in him was farther enhanced by the publication of his
“Narrative,” in 1845. Its issue was made necessary by the demand for
something definite concerning the antecedents of this “alleged slave.”
His accomplishments as a speaker and as a reasoner seemed inconsistent
with the representation made by him, that he had had no schooling, and
that he had been a slave until he was twenty-one years of age. There was
a desire for the exact facts. Yet to give them was dangerous. His
growing popularity was likewise a peril. The possibility of his capture
and return to slavery increased with his influence as an orator and
agitator.
After this publication, Douglass’s personal friends and the leaders of
the anti-slavery cause became more and more apprehensive. It would have
been regarded as little less than a calamity to have had Frederick
Douglass, the incomparable orator, the man in whom almost for the first
time, the silent, toiling slaves had found a voice, dragged back into
bondage. Under the circumstances it was deemed expedient for him to go
to England. Douglass himself was less anxious than his associates. He
was willing to continue to run any risk, if thereby he might serve the
cause of emancipation. His objections, however, were overruled, and he
was obliged to depart. He sailed on the steamer _Cambria_ of the Cunard
Line, Saturday, August 16, 1845, and James N. Buffum, of Lynn, Mass.,
accompanied him.
Though an English boat, Douglass was not allowed cabin accommodations
upon it. This aroused the indignation of a large number of the
passengers, among whom were many anti-slavery people,—notably the
Hutchinson family, the sweet singers of the Abolition cause. Mr.
Douglass by this time had become so used to such humiliations that he
easily made himself at home in the steerage. Within a few days, however,
he was the most popular person on the boat. Cabin passengers came into
his dirty quarters to see and talk with him. And presently all
restrictions were removed and he was welcomed and honored in every part
of the great steamer. A short speech which he delivered _en route_
aroused the resentment of some who were on the ship and a group of young
men threatened to throw him overboard. It was only by the interference
of the captain that Mr. Douglass was saved from violence. On reaching
Liverpool Thursday, August 28, 1845, these young men attempted to
forestall any possible influence he might try to exert, by the
publication of statements derogatory to his character and standing; but
such statements, instead of having the desired effect, served but to
arouse great interest in him.
In going to Great Britain, Mr. Douglass had no fixed plan or program. He
was merely fleeing to a land of safety to escape capture and a return
into slavery. He soon found, however, that he was almost as well-known
in England, as he was in New England. The remarkable story of his life
had been widely read by the British public, especially by those
interested in the anti-slavery cause. They had just passed through an
anti-slavery agitation which had resulted in emancipation in the West
Indies. Many of the most distinguished men in public life in Great
Britain were Abolitionists, and they took an active and eager interest
in the question. All attention was now centred upon America, and the men
and women there who were leaders in the Abolition movement, were
well-known. Douglass found a hospitable public awaiting him. It was the
time of the great political struggle for the repeal of the Corn Laws and
the dissolution of the union between England and Ireland. Some of the
greatest orators and statesmen in English history were on the stage of
action at this period. The black leader was stirred and inspired by the
debates in which such men as Cobden, Bright, Disraeli, Lord Brougham,
Sir Robert Peel, Daniel O’Connell and Lord John Russell took part. He
met all of them personally, was received cordially by them, and treated
with much deference. He dined with Bright and O’Connell, and in Belfast
was tendered a breakfast, at which a member of parliament presided.
While in Edinburgh he was entertained by the eminent philosopher, George
Combe. Thomas Clarkson, who had assisted in inaugurating the
anti-slavery movement in England, and who was at that time the most
distinguished Abolitionist in the world, was deeply affected by meeting
Mr. Douglass, of whom he had heard much. Taking both of his hands he
feelingly said: “God bless you, Frederick Douglass; I have given sixty
years of my life to the emancipation of your people, and if I had sixty
more, they should all be given in the same way.”
Mr. Douglass cherished a peculiar liking for Daniel O’Connell at that
time the incomparable orator and leader of the Irish people. He had a
genuine and lovable personality and was a powerful advocate. He had an
intense hatred for slavery, as for all forms of oppression and
injustice. He introduced Mr. Douglass always as the “Black O’Connell.”
His fondness for the “Maryland slave” made the latter’s tour through
Ireland a continuous ovation. At Cork, a public breakfast was tendered
him and the mayor presided at the first meeting he addressed. On October
4th, Father Mathew devoted an evening to him and Mr. Buffum. The British
and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society presented Douglass with a Bible
splendidly bound in gold. In response to this gracious act, he made the
following acknowledgment:
“I accept thankfully this Bible, and while it shall have the best place
in my home, I trust also to give its precepts a place in my heart.
Twenty years ago while lying, not unlike a dog, at the feet of my
mistress, I was roused from the sweet sleep of childhood to hear the
narrative of Job. A few years afterward found me searching for the
Scriptures in the muddy street gutters to rescue its pages from the
filth. A few years later, I escaped from my chains; gained partial
freedom, and became an advocate for the emancipation of my race. During
this advocacy, a suspicion obtains that I am not what I profess to be,
to silence which, it is necessary for me to write out my experiences in
slavery and give the names of my enslavers. This endangers my liberty;
persecuted, hunted and outraged in America, I have come to England, and
behold the change. The chattel becomes a man. I breathe: I am free!
Instead of culling the Scriptures from the mud, they come to me dressed
in polished gold, as the free and unsolicited gift of devoted hearts.”
Shortly after this happy occurrence, Douglass, with his associate, Mr.
Buffum, left Ireland. He had spoken about fifty times to the people in
various parts of the island. Everywhere he had made a deep impression
and intensified the interest in the American struggle for emancipation.
In carrying the campaign into Scotland, he met for the first time
something in the nature of an opposition or pro-slavery sentiment.
William Lloyd Garrison had already arrived there. It was during the
great excitement, in consequence of the position taken by the “Free
Church” of Scotland in accepting money from slave-holders to be used in
spreading the Gospel. In the cities of Glasgow, Greenock, Edinburgh, and
other places were seen such sensational placards, as, “Send Back the
Money.” These posters fairly indicated the state of public feeling upon
this subject, which was intensified by the presence of Frederick
Douglass, J. N. Buffum, William Lloyd Garrison, and George Thompson, and
by their terrible arraignment of slavery. At one of the great meetings
held at Cannon Mills, Edinburgh, Mr. Douglass was a speaker. It seemed
to be a test of strength between the friends and foes of the policy of
the “Free Church.” Doctors Cunningham and Candlish, men powerful in
influence, learning, and eloquence, championed the cause of the “Free
Church.” Mr. Douglass’s part in the meeting, was, as usual, a striking
one. His facts and figures and actual experiences as a slave, silenced
all arguments of a mere academic sort.
In one of his addresses in Scotland, when he was charged with being in
the pay of some rival religious sect, he said: “I am not here alone: I
have with me the learned, wise and revered heads of the church. But with
or without their sanction, I should stand just where I do now,
maintaining that man-stealing is incompatible with Christianity; that
slave-holding and true religion are at war with each other, and that a
Free Church should have no fellowship with a slave church. The Free
Church, in vindicating their fellowship of slave-holders, have acted on
a damning heresy that a man may be a Christian, whatever may be his
practice, so his creed is right. It is this heresy that holds in chains
three millions of men, women, and children in the United States.”
Each of his Scotch addresses was of this uncompromising and stirring
character. It was a matter of surprise and wonder to his associates to
witness his resourcefulness and readiness to meet all arguments and to
sweep aside all half-truths, uttered in behalf of slavery. Summing up
his work in Scotland, one who had followed him and studied its effects,
wrote: “He has divided the Free Church against itself on account of
slavery. He has gained the admiration and esteem of all the friends of
the slave in this country. He has always kept an open platform, yet none
of the rabbis have been found gallant enough to break lance with him. He
completely exposed their miserable attempts to reconcile slavery with
Christianity.”
While in England and Scotland a man named Thompson, who formerly lived
in St. Michaels, and who pretended to have known Douglass on the
Freeland and Covey plantations, published a letter that tended to
discredit some of his assertions. The ex-slave met these charges in a
straightforward manner, which must have left no doubt of his
truthfulness. In his reply to the Thompson letter, he said: “You have
completely tripped up the heels of your slave-holding friends and laid
them flat at my feet. You have done a piece of anti-slavery work which
no anti-slavery man could do again. If I could see you now, amid the
free hills of Scotland, where the ancient ‘black Douglas’ once met his
foes, I presume I might summon sufficient courage to look you in the
face; and were you to attempt to make a slave of me, it is possible you
might find me almost as disagreeable a subject as was the Douglas to
whom I have just referred.”
The several months spent by the traveler in England were filled with
interesting incidents. His oratorical triumph was complete, and the
attentions accorded him by many prominent people, unusually flattering.
Indeed, it can be said that he was positively lionized in London, but he
bore it with becoming dignity and the grace of a man born to high
conditions.
Perhaps special mention should be made of his address at the World’s
Temperance Convention, held in Covent Garden, August 7, 1846. A large
delegation from the United States was present and some prominent
Americans were on the program. The meeting was an immense affair and, in
point of interest, the number of delegates, and the countries
represented, genuinely international in character. Mr. Douglass was
asked to address the convention and his speech was looked forward to
with great interest. He rather anticipated a sensational outcome of his
attempt to make himself heard, because he was not called upon until the
delegates had spoken, and what they had said furnished him with the very
text that appealed most strongly to his convictions and feelings. As he
rose, the convention was in a quiver of excitement, for it was the first
time that this much-talked-of fugitive from slavery had had a chance to
stand up in the presence of men and women representing all shades of
party opinion, and say the word that concerned the destiny of himself
and his people. He began:
“Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen—I am not a delegate to this
convention. Those who would have been most likely to elect me as a
delegate could not, because they are to-night held in abject slavery
in the United States. Sir, I regret, that I cannot fully unite with
the American delegates in their patriotic eulogies of America and
American societies. I cannot do so for this good reason: there are at
this moment three millions of the American population, by slavery and
prejudice, placed entirely beyond the pale of American temperance
societies. The three million slaves are completely excluded by
slavery, and four hundred thousand free colored people are almost as
completely excluded by an inveterate prejudice against them on account
of their color. [Cries of “Shame! Shame!”]
“I do not say these things to wound the feelings of the American
delegates; I simply mention them in their presence and before this
audience that, seeing how you regard this hatred and neglect of the
colored people, they may be inclined, on their return home, to enlarge
the field of their temperance operations and embrace within the scope
of their influence my long-neglected race. [Great cheering, and some
confusion on the platform.]
“Sir, to give you some idea of the difficulties and obstacles in the
way of the temperance reformation of the colored population of the
United States, allow me to state a few facts. About the year 1840, a
few intelligent, sober, and benevolent colored people of Philadelphia,
being acquainted with the alarming ravages of intemperance among a
numerous class of colored people in that city, and finding themselves
neglected and excluded from white societies, organized societies among
themselves, appointed committees, sent out agents, built temperance
halls, and were earnestly and successfully rescuing many from the
fangs of intemperance.
“The cause went on nobly, until August 1, 1842, the day when England
gave liberty to one hundred thousand souls in the West Indies. The
colored temperance societies selected this day to march in procession
through the city, in the hope that such a demonstration would have the
effect of bringing others into their ranks. They formed their
procession, unfolded their teetotal banners, and proceeded to the
accomplishment of their purpose. It was a delightful sight. But, sir,
they had not proceeded down two streets before they were brutally
assailed by a ruthless mob; their ranks broken up; their persons
beaten and pelted with stones and brickbats. One of their churches was
burned to the ground, and their best temperance hall utterly
demolished.” [“Shame! Shame! Shame!” from the audience and cries of
“Sit down” from the Americans on the platform.]
A tremendous commotion was caused by this speech. The American
delegation was alarmed and indignant. One member wrote an account of the
event for the New York _Evangelist_, from which the following extracts
will serve to gauge the feeling:
“They all advocated the same cause, showed a glorious union of thought
and feeling, and the effect was constantly being raised—the moral
scene was superb and glorious—when Frederick Douglass, the colored
Abolitionist, agitator and ultraist, came to the platform and so spoke
_á la mode_ as to ruin the influence almost of all that preceded! He
lugged in anti-slavery or Abolition, no doubt prompted to it by some
of the politic ones who used him to do what they would not themselves
venture to do in person. He is supposed to have been well paid for
this abomination.
“What a perversion, an abuse, an iniquity against the law of
reciprocal righteousness, to call thousands together and get them,
some certain ones, to seem conspicuous and devoted for one sole and
grand object, and then all at once, with obliquity, open an avalanche
on them for some imputed evil or monstrosity, for which, whatever be
the wound or injury inflicted, they were both too fatigued and hurried
with surprise, and too straitened for time, to be properly prepared. I
say it is a streak of meanness; it is abominable. On this occasion Mr.
Douglass allowed himself to denounce America and all its temperance
societies together as a grinding community of the enemies of his
people; said evil with no alloy of good concerning the whole of us;
was perfectly indiscriminate in his severities; talked of the American
delegates and to them as if he had been our schoolmaster, and we his
docile and devoted pupils; and launched his revengeful missiles at our
country without one palliative word, and as if not a Christian or a
true anti-slavery man lived in the whole United States.
“We all wanted to reply, but it was too late. The whole theatre seemed
taken with the spirit of the Ephesian uproar; they were furious and
boisterous in the extreme, and Mr. Kirk could hardly obtain a moment,
though many were desirous in his behalf, to say a few words, as he
did, very calmly and properly, that the cause of temperance was not at
all responsible for slavery, and had no connection with it.”
At a Peace Convention held in London, Douglass made an address from
which the following excerpt is given to show to what an extent he at
this time shared the illusions of the Abolitionists, who, while
preaching the doctrine of non-resistance, were steadily feeding the
passions that made war eventually inevitable:
“You may think it somewhat singular, that I, a slave, an American slave,
should stand forth at this time as an advocate of peace between two
countries situated as this and the United States are, when it is
universally believed that the war between them would result in the
emancipation of three millions of my brethren, who are now held in the
most cruel bonds in that country. I believe this would be the result;
but such is my regard for the principle of peace; such is my deep, firm
conviction that nothing can be attained for liberty universally by war,
that were I to be asked the question whether I would have my
emancipation by the shedding of one single drop of blood, my answer
would be in the negative.”
Thus he spoke in 1846, but by the time Lincoln was nominated for
President, and war was actually impending, Douglass was prepared to
welcome it as a part of the price to be paid for justice, progress, and
freedom.
His ability to discuss any of the live questions of the day was a matter
of genuine surprise to the English people. At a farewell entertainment,
given to him, March 30, 1847, just before leaving London, William
Howitt, the author, said: “He [Douglass] has appeared in this country
before the most accomplished audiences, who were surprised, not only at
his talents, but at his extraordinary information; and all I can say is,
I hope Americans will continue to send such men as Frederick Douglass,
and slavery will soon be abolished.”
Mr. Douglass had now spent about twenty-three months in England,
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Like every other new experience, this
opportunity for travel in foreign lands was an education, and those who
had watched and heard him most often in his lecture-tours and in social
intercourse, could easily note his progress in breadth of sympathy and
intellectual grasp. He learned some things in England that he never
could have learned in his own country. The possibility of a perfect
comradeship between people of differing nationalities, creeds, and
colors was a fact that deeply impressed him. He learned that the great
men of the times, who had the power to make and unmake international law
as well as to mould and express public opinion, all regarded slavery as
a blight on civilization. He learned to have a new and stronger faith in
the ability and disposition of the white race to deal fairly with his
race. If he hated slavery more because of what he had seen, heard, and
experienced in England, he had gained a new strength of heart and mind
to battle for its extinction in America.
It would have been pleasant for him to have remained abroad and have
become a citizen of free Britain. No colored man had ever been more
flattered and fêted by the public. His friends and admirers multiplied
everywhere. Many of his oversea friends urged him to surrender his
American allegiance, but no inducement, however alluring, could cause
him to desert his fellow-men in bonds. In fact, when it was given out in
the United States that an attempt would be made by his old masters, the
Aulds, to arrest him on his return and carry him back to a Maryland
plantation, Douglass wrote: “No inducement could be offered, strong
enough to make me quit my hold upon America as my home. Whether a slave
or a freeman, America is my home, and there I mean to spend and be spent
in the cause of my outraged fellow countrymen.”
As the time approached for him to leave England, a deep concern for his
safety began to be felt and expressed by his British friends. As an
outcome of this feeling, a proposition was made by Mrs. Ellen
Richardson, belonging to the Society of Friends, that a fund be raised
to purchase his freedom and thus remove all possibility of danger of
re-enslavement. The proposition was at once accepted, and gladly acted
upon by Mrs. Richardson and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Henry Richardson. As
the result of correspondence, the purchase price, £150, was named and
the sum was raised. The following is a true copy of the legal papers by
force of which Frederick Douglass became free:
“Know all men by these presents, that I, Thomas Auld, of Talbot County
and State of Maryland, for and in consideration of the sum of one
hundred dollars[2] current money, to me paid by Hugh Auld of the city
of Baltimore, in the said state, at and before the sealing and
delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof I, the said Thomas
Auld, do hereby acknowledge, have granted, bargained, and sold, and by
these presents do grant, bargain, and sell unto the said Hugh Auld,
his executors, administrators, and assigns, one Negro man, by the name
of Frederick Bailey or Douglass, as he calls himself—he is now about
twenty-eight years of age—to have and to hold the said Negro man for
life. And I, the said Thomas Auld, for myself, my heirs, executors and
administrators, all and singular, the said Frederick Bailey, alias
Douglass, unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors, and administrators,
and against all and every person or persons whatsoever, shall and will
warrant and forever defend by these presents. In witness whereof, I
set my hand and seal this thirteenth day of November, eighteen hundred
and forty-six. (1846.)
THOMAS AULD.
“Signed, sealed and delivered in presence of Wrightson Jones, John C.
Lear.”
Footnote 2:
The £150 were paid to Hugh Auld who had previously obtained his $100,
which seems to have been a sort of quit claim deed from his brother
Thomas.
“To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, Hugh Auld of the city
of Baltimore, in Baltimore County, in the State of Maryland, for
divers good causes and considerations me thereunto moving, have
released from slavery, liberated, manumitted, and set free, and by
these presents do hereby release from slavery, liberate, manumit, and
set free, my Negro man, named Frederick Bailey, otherwise called
Douglass, being of the age of twenty-eight years or thereabouts, and
able to work and gain a sufficient livelihood and maintenance; and
him, the said Negro man named Frederick Douglass, I do declare to be
henceforth free, manumitted and discharged from all manner of
servitude to me, my executors and administrators forever.
“In witness whereof, I, the said Hugh Auld, have hereunto set my hand
and seal the fifth of December, in the year one thousand eight hundred
and forty-six.
HUGH AULD.
“Sealed and delivered in presence of T. Hanson Belt, James N. S. T.
Wright.”
This purchase of Mr. Douglass’s freedom was not approved by some of the
ultra-Abolitionists in the United States. A contributor to _The
Liberator_ said: “Let us beg of you never to publish another word in
your paper about the ransom of Douglass. I am quite ashamed that our
American Abolitionists should expose their narrowness in expressing so
many regrets at their loss of slave-property in Douglass. They seem to
feel that he was their property, and not his man.”
Many Abolitionists thought it a violation of anti-slavery principles and
a waste of money. Mr. Douglass’s own feelings in the matter are stated
by himself in the following language: “For myself, viewing it in the
light of a ransom or as money extorted by a robber, and regarding my
liberty of more value than one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, I
could not see in it either a violation of the law of morality or
economy.”
In still another practical way did his English friends show their
affection for Douglass before he left them. Having learned upon his
return to America that it was his desire to publish a newspaper, in the
interest of his people, the sum of $2,500 was without difficulty raised
and presented to him for that purpose.
The contrast between the conditions of his coming to England and those
of his returning to the United States affords an interesting evidence of
his power of conquest. He went to England knowing no one, and personally
known by no one; he returned to his own country carrying with him the
friendships of men and women whose acquaintance but few Americans, at
that time, could have obtained. He went to Great Britain a slave in
danger of re-capture and re-subjugation; he returned, freed from his
master by the bounty of English friends. He was empowered and equipped
to publish the gospel of immediate and unconditional emancipation.
Douglass arrived home in the spring of 1847. He sailed early Sunday,
April 4th. The last night of his stay abroad was spent as the guest of
John Bright and his sisters. From no one in England could Douglass have
received a more gracious welcome and friendly benediction than from this
great commoner. The only incident that in any way clouded his departure
was the act of the officers of the steamer _Cambria_ in refusing to let
him have the berth previously engaged for him. When the English people
heard of this, great indignation was voiced in the press and from the
platform, in every part of the United Kingdom. The result was that Mr.
Cunard in an open letter expressed his regrets, and Mr. Douglass was
given a stateroom; but he was not permitted to leave it or to place
himself in view of the other passengers during the sixteen days he was
upon the sea.