Wherever slavery is discovered, these horrid instruments are also discovered. Whether on the coast of Africa, among the savage tribes, or in South Carolina, among the many refined and civilized, slavery is the same, and its accompaniments one and the identical. It makes no distinction whether the slaveholder worships the God of the Christians, or is a follower of Mahomet, he is the minister of the identical cruelty, and the creator of the identical distress. Slavery is all the time slavery; always the same foul, haggard, and damning scourge, whether or not found in the eastern or within the western hemisphere. Was the graduation of a higher state of existence than any to which I had ever aspired. I was thrown into society essentially the most pure, enlightened, and benevolent, that the country affords.
Albeit, the lash of proscription, to a person accustomed to equal social position, even for a time, as I was, has a sting for the soul hardly less extreme than that which bites the flesh and attracts the blood from the back of the plantation slave. The reader will simply imagine what should have been my emotions. Proposing to leave England, and turning my face towards America, in the spring of 1847, I was met, on the threshold, with something which painfully jogged my memory of the type of life which awaited me in my place of origin. For the primary time within the many months spent abroad, I was met with proscription on account of my color. A few weeks earlier than departing from England, whereas in London, I was cautious to purchase a ticket, and secure a berth for returning home, within the “Cambria”—the steamer during which I left the United States—paying therefor the round sum of forty kilos and nineteen shillings sterling.
There have been no mean advantages taken of each other, as is sometimes the case where slaves are located as we were; no tattling; no giving one another dangerous names to Mr. Freeland; and no elevating one on the expense of the opposite. We by no means undertook to do any thing, of any importance, which was prone to have an effect on one another, with out mutual consultation. Thoughts and sentiments were exchanged between us, which could properly be called very incendiary, by oppressors and tyrants; and perhaps the time has not even now come, when it’s secure to unfold all of the flying recommendations which come up within the minds of intelligent slaves. Several of my pals and brothers, if but alive, are still in some part of the home of bondage; and although twenty years have passed away, the suspicious malice of slavery might punish them for even listening to my ideas.
I had become lukewarm and in a backslidden state, however I was still convinced that it was my obligation to hitch the Methodist church. The slaveholding church, with its Coveys, Weedens, Aulds, and Hopkins, I could see by way of at once, however I could not see how Elm Street church, in New Bedford, could presumably be regarded as sanctioning the Christianity of these characters within barcelonabased factorial hr 80m global the church at St. Michael’s. I therefore resolved to affix the Methodist church in New Bedford, and to benefit from the religious benefit of public worship. Once transformed, I thought they’d be sure to deal with me as a man and a brother. “Surely,” thought I, “these Christian people have none of this feeling towards color.
” was indignantly cried out, from Greenock to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh to Aberdeen. George Thompson, of London, Henry C. Wright, of the United States, James N. Buffum, of Lynn, Massachusetts, and myself have been on the anti-slavery aspect; and Doctors Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish on the opposite. In a battle where the latter might have had even the show of proper, the reality, in our arms as against them, will must have been driven to the wall; and while I believe we had been capable of carry the conscience of the nation in opposition to the action of the Free Church, the battle, it should be confessed, was a hard-fought one.
He seemed very a lot chagrined that he didn’t catch me, and gave up the chase, very reluctantly; for I could see his angry movements, towards the house from which he had sallied, on his foray. Removing me from that home; apart from,” mentioned he and this I discovered was probably the most distressing considered all to him—“if you want to leave Covey now, that your yr has but half expired, I should lose your wages for the complete yr. You belong to Mr. Covey for one year, and you should return to him, come what will. With such a complete knock-down to all my hopes, as he had given me, and feeling, as I did, my complete subjection to his power, I had little or no coronary heart to answer.
