CHAPTER VI

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.

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