Chapter Nine

“To be henceforth free, manumitted and discharged from all manner of servitude to me....”

The two letters reached them in the same mail. One came from James Buffum to Frederick; the other was for Daniel O’Connell from George Thompson, the English Abolitionist. Thompson, who had been stoned from his platform in Boston on his last trip to America, had not met Frederick. However, he had heard from William Lloyd Garrison.

Their letters said substantially the same thing: “We need Douglass in Scotland.”

The facts were brief. It had been proved that the Free Church of Scotland, under the leadership of the great Doctors Cunningham, Candlish and Chalmers, had taken money from slave-dealers to build churches and to pay church ministers for preaching the gospel. John Murray of Bowlien Bay and other antislavery men of Glasgow had called it a disgrace. The leading divines had thereupon undertaken to defend, in the name of God and the Bible, not only the principle of taking money from slavers, but also of holding fellowship with these traffickers in human beings. The people of Scotland were thoroughly aroused. Meetings were being called and strong speakers were needed. Buffum and Thompson were already on their way to Edinburgh.

“You’ll come back, Frederick?” O’Connell’s voice was wistful. It was like parting with a son.

“Come with us!” Frederick urged. But the “Liberator” shook his head.

“Our people are threatened with starvation. First our potatoes. And now the wheat crop has failed in England. There is no longertime. Richard Cobden writes that the Prime Minister may be with us. A shallow hope, but I must be on hand if needed.”

“Perhaps then I shall see you in London?” The thought that he might not see the old man again was unbearable.

“Perhaps, Frederick. God bless you!”

Frederick found the famous old city of Edinburgh literally plastered with banners.Send Back the Moneystared at him from street corners. Every square and crescent carried the signs. They had scribbled it on the sidewalks and painted it in large white letters on the side of the rocky hill which stands like some Gibraltar, guarding the city:Send Back the Money.

For several days George Thompson, James Buffum and another American, Henry C. Wright, had been holding antislavery meetings in the city. As soon as Douglass arrived, they hurried him off to the most beautiful hall he had ever seen. The audience was already assembled and greeted him with cheers. Without taking time to remove the dust and grime of travel, he mounted the platform and told his story.

After that, excitement mounted in the town.Send Back the Moneyappeared in a banner across the top of Edinburgh’s leading newspapers. Somebody wrote a popular street song, withSend Back the Moneyin the chorus. Wherever Douglass went, crowds gathered. It was as if he had become the symbol of the people’s demand.

At last the general assembly of the Free Church rose to the bait and announced they would hold an open session at Cannon Mills. Doctors Cunningham and Candlish would defend the Free Church of Scotland’s relations with slavery in America. The great Dr. Chalmers was in feeble health at the time. “Besides,” Douglass wrote afterward,[6]“he had spoken his word on this question; and it had not silenced the clamor without nor stilled the anxious heavings within.” As it turned out, the whole weight of the business fell on Cunningham.

The quartet of Abolitionists made it their business to go to this meeting of the opposition. So did the rest of Edinburgh. The building held about twenty-five hundred persons. Long ahead of time, the crowd gathered outside and stood waiting for the doors to open.

Douglass always remembered the meeting at Cannon Mills with relish.

Dr. Cunningham rose to tumultuous applause and began his learned address. With logic and eloquence he built up his argument, the high point of which was that neither Jesus Christ nor his holy apostles had looked upon slaveholding as a sin.

Just as the divine reached this climax, George Thompson called out, in a dear, sonorous, but rebuking voice, “Hear! Hear! Hear!” Speaker and audience were brought to a dead silence.

“The effect of this common exclamation was almost incredible,” Douglass reported.[7]“It was as if a granite wall had been suddenly flung up against the advancing current of a river.... Both the Doctor and his hearers seemed appalled by the audacity as well as the fitness of the rebuke.”

After a moment the speaker cleared his throat and continued. But his words stuck in his throat—the flow of language was dammed. The speech dragged on for several minutes, and then the Doctor stumbled to his seat to scattered patting of hands.

The Free Church of Scotland held on to its bloodstained money, and the people bowed their heads in shame.

“Ours is a long history,” said Andrew Paton, sadly, “of incompetent leadership and blind, unquestioning following by the ranks.”

“But this time you did protest. The people of Scotland know what slavery means now,” George Thompson assured him.

Thompson, Buffum and Douglass traveled back to London together. They went by stagecoach, stopping each night at some inn. It was like a holiday. Frederick thought the soft mist that lay over all the land was very lovely. And there was something comforting and homelike about the way the stark grandeur of Scotland’s rugged crags gave way to rounded hills, wide valleys and gently rolling moors. The roads of Ireland had been bad, the occasional inns wretched and dirty. Now, for the most part, they rolled along in state; and, when night came, lights from an inn twinkled a jolly welcome, the dinner was hot and filling, the innkeeper genial. Undoubtedly, thought Frederick, life is pleasanter in England.

The three Abolitionists were teetotalers—temperance men on principle. But Frederick could not stifle a desire to taste of the foamy ale which he saw being tossed off with such gusto.

“Are yousureit’s alcoholic?” he asked.

Thompson threw back his head with a hearty laugh.

“If you mean will a bit of our ale with your dinner make youdrunk. I’ll say no.” He eyed him with a quizzical twinkle. “You’d like some?”

“Frederick!” Buffum frowned his disapproval. He was three-fourths Massachusetts Puritan and he felt an older man’s responsibility.

But the Englishman spread his hands and reasoned.

“This is a test, Friend Buffum. Here is a newcomer to England. He observes that ale is a national drink. He asks why?” He leaned forward. “How can he speak of the temptations of any kind of drink if he has never even tasted ale? Be logical, man!” Frederick was certain that one eye winked. He grinned and looked anxiously at the Secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. By now he reallywantedsome ale. Buffum had to laugh, if weakly. He clucked his tongue and shook his head.

“Frederick, Frederick! What would the folks at home say?”

Thompson was signaling to the waiter to bring them a large ale.

“That,” he said sagely, as he turned back to his companions, “is something history will not record!” He looked at Frederick’s broad, rather solemn face and raised his eyebrows. “But I am of the opinion that a single wild oat sown by our young friend will do him no great harm.”

The boy came up, bearing three huge, foaming mugs, having interpreted the order as he thought right. He set the mugs down with a thump, scattering the suds in every direction, and departed before anyone could say “Jack Robinson!”

“Well”—Thompson shook with laughter—“it seems our young friend here is not going to sow his oats alone. So be it!” He raised his mug high in the air and led off.

“Gentlemen! To the Queen! God bless her!”

As they neared London they talked plans.

“First,” said Thompson, “our distinguished visitor must have some clothes.”

Frederick wondered whom he was talking about, but Buffum, his eyes on Frederick, nodded his head thoughtfully.

“Yes, I suppose so,” he murmured. Then they both looked at Frederick and he shifted uneasily. Answering the unspoken question in his face, Thompson explained.

“You are becoming something of a celebrity. You will be going to dinners and teas. You must have proper apparel.”

“But—” Frederick began, flushed and downcast.

“You are now in the employ of the World Anti-Slavery Society,” Thompson went on, “our chief and most effective spokesman. In the interest of the entire cause you must make what the French call the good impression.”

Now Frederick’s apprehensions began to mount. How could he go into English “society”?

“Clothes do not make a gentleman,” he said, shaking his head violently. “I am a workingman. I will speak—yes—anywhere. I will tell the meaning of slavery, I will do anything, but I have no manners or ways for society.”

Thompson regarded the young man a long moment before answering.

“You are right, Frederick,” he said quietly. “Clothes do not make a gentleman. They only serve to render him less conspicuous.” He placed the tips of his fingers together and continued. “It will interest you to know that our word aristocracy comes from the Greekaristokratia, which is to say ‘the best workman.’” He leaned forward. “Someday we’ll recognize that. Meanwhile, Frederick Douglass, make no mistake about it—youbelong!”

Came the evening when the swaying stagecoach drew up before the Golden Cross Hostelry on Charing Cross. The thick fog gave Frederick a feeling of unreality. He could see nothing but dim lights and looming shadows, but he was surrounded by a kind of muffled, intermittent rumbling. He stood in the drizzling rain listening.

“Come,” said Thompson, taking him by the arm. “Let’s get inside. You’ll be drenched before you realize it.”

Thompson lived in Dulwich, a suburb of London, but he was going to stay in town a few days until his friends had found suitable lodging and until, as he put it, chuckling, Frederick was “launched.”

The next few days were busy ones. They found lodgings in Tavistock Square, not far from the Tavistock House, where Dickens lived for ten years. London would be Douglass’ headquarters. From there he would make trips throughout England and in the spring would go to Wales. He was waited upon by the British India Committee, the Society of Friends, the African Colonial Society and by a group working for the repeal of the Corn Laws.

“It is the poor man’s fight,” they said.

The newcomer listened carefully, read newspapers morning and night and asked questions. He spoke at the Freemason’s Hall, taking as his theme the right of every workman to have bread. Douglassspoke well, for he had only to step outside his rooms in London to see the pinch of poverty. Then, just as Thompson had warned him, the writers William and Mary Howitt sent a charming note asking him for a week-end in the country. Fortunately Frederick had managed to see a good tailor.

“Go, Frederick,” his co-workers urged him. “They are Quakers. They have influence. You will come back rested.”

Fall was closing around London like a shroud, but Clapham was delightful. The Howitts greeted him warmly.

“We have read yourNarrative, so you are an old friend.”

This was Frederick’s initiation into English country life. He walked out into the beautiful garden where, rounding a smilax, he almost stepped on Hans Christian Andersen!

It was Mary and William Howitt who had translated the Danish writer’s works into English. Andersen was very fond of them, and their home in Clapham was his haven. When they had guests he could always putter about in the garden. He knew that the famous ex-slave was coming that afternoon, but he would meet him after the tea party was over. Now, on his knees, trowel in hand, a smudge of mud on his nose, he stared with amazement.So much of darkness and beard—and what a head!

A peal of musical laughter behind him caused Frederick to turn. The funny little man scrambled to his feet and Mary Howitt, who had followed Frederick into the garden, was saying, “It is our dear Hans.”

Andersen knew very little English and Frederick had never before heard Danish, so they could do very little more than grin at each other. But later, before an open fire, Frederick read Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy stories, while Andersen, sipping his brandy, watched the expressive dark face. Their eyes met, and they were friends.

The next day Douglass asked the Howitts about their translations and what it meant to study languages other than one’s native tongue. Then the writer of fairy tales began to talk. He spoke in Danish, and Mary interpreted. He talked of languages, of their background and history. He told Frederick about words and their symbolic magic. And another corner of Frederick’s brain unfolded itself.

There was too much rain the summer and fall of 1845. Robert Peel, Prime Minister of Great Britain, stood at his window and watched it beat down on the slippery stones of the court. But he wasnot seeing the paving stones, he was not seeing the dripping walls. He was seeing unripened spikes of wheat rotting in the mud. He knew he had a crisis on his hands and he was not ready.

Robert Peel was a Tory. His background and education, his administration as Secretary of Ireland, his avowed policies, all had been those of the Conservative party. In appearance he was cold and proud. But he was an honest man, and he grew in wisdom.

Until the 1840’s, despite the vast industrial changes of the previous half-century, some balance had been maintained between industry and agriculture. British farmers had been able to feed most of the workers in the new towns and factories and mines. But population had increased, villages had dwindled, and whole networks of manufacturing towns had sprung into being. When Peel took office the country was already in serious straits. The problem was economic, he knew. He listened to the speeches of John Bright, a Quaker cotton-spinner from Lancashire and he received Richard Cobden.

“There are thousands of houses in England at this moment where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger. Come with me and you will never rest until you give them bread,” Cobden said.

Cobden backed his facts with logic. High tariffs kept out foodstuffs and essential commodities; landowners were keeping up the price of wheat while workingmen starved. Britain was on the verge of social revolution.

So Robert Peel, the Conservative, began to reduce customs. In 1842 he set a gradually lowering scale for corn duties. He sought to shift the burden of taxation from the poor to the wealthier classes and to cheapen the necessities of life. He saw that reforms were necessary, but he wished to avoid hasty changes. And in this caution lay his undoing.

His own party fell away. The Whigs distrusted the haughty, gray-eyed Minister. What did he, a Tory, mean by “seeming” to favor lower tariffs? The Irish still hated him because he stood firm against Repeal of the Union. The Catholics opposed him because he had backed nonsectarian schools.

But the enemy who kept closest watch was Disraeli. Not for a day did this ambitious member of Parliament forget that he had been left out of the new Prime Minister’s cabinet. He took this omission as a personal slight. Hatred for Peel distorted his every move. Cleverly, coolly, calculatingly, Disraeli widened the cleavage in party ranks; he drew young aristocrats about him; he flattered them with his wit and charm, and whispered that Robert Peel,theirRobert Peel, wasbetraying them. He was pushing the country into Free Trade. He would open the gates to a deluge that would destroy England.

In the spring of 1845 Richard Cobden had risen in the House of Commons and called for Repeal of the Corn Laws. He said that Free Trade ought to be applied to agriculture and pointed to what it had done for British manufacturing. He decried the old fallacy that wages vary with the price of bread. He thundered that there was no truth in the contention that wages were high when bread is dear and low when bread is cheap. The Conservatives drew together, their faces hardening.

But Robert Peel no longer backed the Corn Laws. He wanted the drawbridges around Britain lowered forever. But he wondered how could he, leader of the Conservative party, carry through such a revolutionary change? He decided to let the present Parliament run its course. In the next election he would appeal to the country: he would carry the fight to the people. Then they could send him back, free of all party ties and obligations, as a Free Trader.

But the weather is no respecter of parliamentary elections! The wheat crop failed in England, like the potato crop in Ireland. People were starving, and the Corn Laws locked out food. Peel called a meeting of his Cabinet, and the storm broke.

The Cobden forces were ready. They held great mass meetings, with Cobden and Bright enlisting every available speaker. Frederick Douglass addressed crowds in Piccadilly, on the docks, and in Hyde Park. He and John Bright went down into Lancashire. They talked in Birmingham and other towns and cities about the worker’s right to have bread.

Then one morning a week before Christmas, Bright burst into the rooms on Tavistock Square, waving a newspaper.

“We’ve won! We’ve won!” he shouted. “The Cabinet’s intact, the Prime Minister is back, the Repeal stands! We’ve won!”

James Buffum rolled out of bed and reached for the paper. Frederick, partly dressed, emerged from behind a curtained cubicle and clapped the little man on the shoulder. John Bright had watched his wife die of starvation while he sat at his spindles. But he could not fill enough spools. He could not spin fast enough. She had died. So John Bright had left his loom and joined Richard Cobden. Now there would be more food in England. He stood clinging to the dark man’s hand—this new friend who knew so much about suffering.

“I’m going home,” he said in his rich rolling Lancashire brogue.“I’m going down to tell the folks myself. Come with me. We’ll be glad together!”

So it happened that Frederick spent the Christmas in a spinner’s shack in Lancaster. On Christmas Eve he wrote Anna.

The baby’s crying in the next room and here in the corner sleeps a little lad just about Freddie’s age. He’s curled in a tight knot and his hair is falling over his face. It’s not as round as I remember Freddie’s, nor are his legs as plump. This house isn’t as big as our little place in New Bedford and there are four children! But tonight they’re all happy. The weavers carried on as if John and I had given them the world! My hand shakes as I think of it. We brought a goose and a few toys for the children. You should have seen their eyes! Tomorrow we will feast! How I wish you could share this with me. They’re letting me borrow their little ones. But my heart cannot but be anxious for my own. Are you well and are the children well? I enclose some money. Enough, I hope, for your most urgent needs. But my real Christmas present to you is news that will make you very happy. Friends here are raising money to purchase my freedom—seven hundred and fifty dollars! The Misses Richardson, sweet sisters in Newcastle, have written to Mr. Walter Forward of Philadelphia, who will seek out Captain Auld and ask what he will accept for my person. He will tell my former master that I am now in England and that there is no possibility of my being taken. There can be little doubt that under the circumstances the Captain will name his price—and be very glad to get it! So, dear Anna, soon this separation will be at an end. I will return to you and to my dear children, in fact and before the law, a free man.

The writer sat for a few moments regarding that last line. Anna’s eyes would shine when she read it. For an instant her face was there. Then the child stirred in his sleep. Frederick rose and straightened the little limbs on the cot. His hands were very tender.

“Frederick! I believe you’ve grown,” Garrison beamed. He had just arrived in London from America.

John Bright nodded. “He is a big man,” he said.

Garrison whisked Frederick away to Sir John Bowring’s castle where they had been asked for over New Year’s.

Sir John had represented England as Minister to China. He wasa brilliant talker and drew about himself a circle of literary friends. On New Year’s Eve, Douglass stood at a table covered with fine linen and old silver. He held in his hand a crystal glass and drank another toast: “The Queen! God bless her!”

They were all back in London for the opening of Parliament. Robert Peel on the side of the people! A great day for England!

As if to honor the auspicious occasion the fog blew away during the night, and January 22, 1846, dawned clear and bright like a spring day. People poured into the streets and lined Pall Mall. The Queen was coming! They crowded into Cannon Row and Parliament Street and surrounded Westminster Hall and Parliament. The Queen was coming!

Cobden had secured seats for them in the gallery, but Garrison and Douglass lingered in the crowd, craning their necks. The bobbies were forcing them back to keep the way clear when a modest, closed carriage drew up and a tall figure in a high silk hat stepped out.

“It’s Peel! It’s Robert Peel!” shouted Garrison and that started the crowd cheering. They had not recognized the Prime Minister. But the tall, pale man looked neither to the right or left. He walked straight ahead, unsmiling, and disappeared. The people were disappointed. They wanted to know him. They wanted to be friends.

The cheers had not gone unheeded. In the great, open carriage with prancing horses that now turned into the square, Disraeli tightened his lips. The carriage stopped with a clatter, the footman sprang down and threw open the door. Disraeli stepped out, his head high, his silken cape enveloping him with majesty. The crowd pressed forward.

“Who is it?”

“Who is that man?”

“Disraeli!” someone answered.

“The Jew!” another voice added.

They drew back then, and let him pass in silence. Frederick Douglass followed him with his eyes. There was something painful in the defiant swagger. As he disappeared Frederick caught his breath sharply. He felt a hurt in his chest.

“I’m sorry for that man,” he said, in a heavy tone.

“Why?” asked Garrison coolly. “He would spit upon you!”

Frederick shook his head. “Let’s go in.” Suddenly, he was very tired.

Inside he forgot his singular depression when, from the throne ofEngland, Queen Victoria declared the session of Parliament open. She was only thirty-one years old at that time, not beautiful perhaps, but a radiantly happy woman. Prince Albert was at her side. She was adored by her people. None of their hardships were laid at her door. Now she felt that a crisis had been successfully averted. Her voice rang with confidence and pride as she addressed her trusted Prime Minister.

And all the Lords and Ministers of the realm bowed low. The royal couple took their leave, and the business of running an empire was resumed. Every eye turned toward Robert Peel.

The Prime Minister rose, very pale, and began to state his case. He had the facts. Step by step, he unfolded his plan for combating the economic stalemate: cheap raw materials for the manufacturer, no protection against fair foreign competition, cheaper seed for the farmer, the open door for foreign meat and corn; for all, cheaper living.

No longer was his face cold and remote. The fires of deep conviction glowed in his eyes, and there was passion in his final declaration of independence.

“I will not, sirs,” he concluded, “undertake to direct the course of the vessel by observations which have been taken in 1842.” His words rang. “I do not wish to be Minister of England, but while I have the high honor of holding that office, I am determined to hold it by no servile tenure. I will only hold that office upon the condition of being unshackled by any other obligation than those of consulting the public interests, and of providing for the public safety.”

He bowed and took his seat. Douglass wet his dry lips. What did the heavy silence mean? He wanted to blister his hands with applause. Garrison laid his hand on the younger man’s arm.

There was a slight stir of movement, and Sir John Russell was on his feet. He commended the Prime Minister’s speech and quietly backed it up with the authentic statement of Whig disasters. Some of the tenseness relaxed. There was polite applause when Sir John ended and a bit of parliamentary phrasing by the clerk. Men moved restlessly, wondering what to do next.

Then, like an actor carefully choosing his entrance Disraeli rose. Slowly his eyes swept the chamber. There was a sneering smile on his lips. It was as if he scorned their cowardly silence. Disraeli knew his time had come.

He stepped forth as defender of everything sacred! He talked ofall the fine traditions of Great Britain. Englishmen, he said, must be protected without and within, from those who would undermine her power. The Prime Minister had given a “glorious example of egotistical rhetoric,” and his policy was a “gross betrayal of the principles which had put him in power and of the party which kept him there.”

The brilliance of his style held them spellbound. His defense of England thrilled them and his attack on Peel justified their selfishness. Disraeli took his seat to thunderous applause.

Douglass was shaking as though ill.

“What does it mean?” he asked, when they had got away.

“It means,” said Richard Cobden, grimly, “that we’ll have to fight every inch of the way all over again. We have won nothing. Except that now Disraeli will stop at nothing to ruin Peel.”

“But how can Disraeli oppose the cause of poor people? I thought he knew of oppression and suffering from his own experience.” Douglass’ distress was very real. John Bright tried to explain.

“Suffering and oppression often only embitter men, Frederick, embitter and harden them. They close in upon themselves. They are so determined to be safe that they are ruthless and cruel. Undoubtedly Disraeli has suffered, but he has suffered selfishly—he has refused to see the sufferings of other people. He will sacrifice anything for power.”

Frederick Douglass was learning what it takes to make men free. In the spring he went up into Wales. He traveled, as he said in a letter which was published in theLiberator, “from the Hill of Howth to the Giant’s Causeway, and from the Giant’s Causeway to Cape Clear.” On May 12 he made a speech at Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, which was published throughout England. William Gladstone addressed a note to him, inviting him to call.

Douglass heard that Daniel O’Connell was in London, that the Irish and Catholics were joined in the coalition against Peel. Yet the Prime Minister carried his Corn Bill through the House of Commons with comparative ease. It began to look as if, in spite of Lord Bentinck and Disraeli, it would get through the House of Lords. Then they attacked Peel’s character.

Returning to London in May, Douglass immediately sought out O’Connell. The old man greeted him warmly, but he was haggard and shaken. Also, he was on the defensive. They could not avoid the subject which was uppermost in both their minds.

“He’s a lifelong enemy of Ireland, lad.” O’Connell studied Frederick’s troubled face anxiously.

“But Richard Cobden proves that Peel will listen to reason. Cobden has won him so far along the way. His enemies are using the Irish question now to destroy him.”

“He would tie Ireland to England forever!” The old man rose defiantly, shaking his white hair.

On June 25 the Corn Bill passed in the House of Lords, but the same day the Commons repudiated the Minister’s Life Preservation bill for Ireland by a majority of seventy-three. Once more his enemies could say that Peel had betrayed his principles and fooled his followers. Three days later Peel tendered his resignation to the Queen.

That evening Douglass, accompanied by O’Connell, made his way to the Parliament.

“He will speak tonight—for the last time,” John Bright had told them.

The members sat in their seats, strangely subdued. The contest between Peel and Disraeli was over. True, the Corn Laws were repealed—the gates were down. But Disraeli had forced Robert Peel out. He was finished.

Yet the grimness which had marked his pale face in the past months was gone, and in his final words there was a sense of peace that seemed to reach beyond that time and place.

“When Ministers appear to change their course, and lay themselves open to the charge of inconsistency, it were better perhaps for this country and for the general character of public men that they be punished by expulsion from office.” He did not blame them, then. There was no word of bitterness. Moreover, the credit for his reforms, he said, should not go to him. “The name which ought to be chiefly associated with the success of these measures is the name of Richard Cobden,” one who has achieved his disinterested purpose by “appeals to our reason.”

There was a slight rustle throughout the chamber. It was as if the very shadows were listening.

“In relinquishing power, I shall leave a name censured by many who deeply regret the severance of party ties, by others, who, from no selfish interest adhere to the principles of Protection, considering its maintenance essential to the welfare and interests of the country; I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist, who clamors for Protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit. But itmay be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labor, and to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. Perhaps they too will call my name when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is not leavened by a sense of injustice.”

It was all over in a few minutes. Frederick turned at a sound beside him. O’Connell had covered his face with his two hands. Frederick slipped his arm through his, pressing against him. The grand old man of Ireland was weeping.

It was the Reverend Samuel Hanson Cox who now decided that London had had just about enough of Frederick Douglass!

Sixty or seventy American divines had arrived in London that summer for the double purpose of attending the World Evangelical Alliance and the World Temperance Convention. It was the avowed purpose of a group of these ministers, under the leadership of the Reverend Cox, to procure a blanket endorsement for the Christian character of slaveholders. The matter was becoming a little ticklish in certain quarters, and these churchmen were determined to establish the Biblical and divine status of the “sons of Ham” whom—they agreed—God had designated “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”

What was their dismay, therefore, to find one of the slaves running around at large in England, speaking from platforms, and being invited to the homes of respectable, but utterly misguided, EnglishmenandEnglishwomen—God save us!

The divines set about enlightening the English people. Before they realized it, the question of slavery became a burning issue in the Evangelical Alliance. And things did not go well. By far the larger crowds were attracted to the Temperance Convention, which was being held in huge Covent Garden. The Abolitionists planned carefully. One afternoon when the Garden was packed, Frederick Douglass was called from the audience to “address a few words” to the Convention. The slavers’ advocates were thunderstruck! They could not believe that such treachery existed within their own ranks. As, amid clamorous applause, Douglass made his way to the platform, Reverend Cox leaped to his feet and shouted his protests. But he was yelled down.

“Let him speak!”

“Hear him!”

“Douglass! Frederick Douglass!”

They shouted until the livid little divine sank helpless into his seat.

Frederick Douglass, “the young lion,” had come into his full strength. He stood facing the audience which filled every corner of Covent Garden, and felt power coursing all along his veins. He resolved that no man or woman within the sound of his voice that afternoon should ever be able to say “I did not know!”

According to the account written by the Reverend Cox that appeared in his denominational paper, theNew York Evangelist, Douglass’ speech was “a perversion, an abuse, and an iniquity against the law of reciprocal righteousness—inspired, I believe, from beneath, and not from above. This Douglass,” said Reverend Cox, “denounced American temperance societies and churches as a community of enemies of his people. He talked to the American delegates as if he had been our schoolmaster and we his docile and devoted pupils.”

And Covent Garden rocked as it seldom had in all its history.

“We all wanted to reply,” the account concluded, “but it was too late. The whole theater seemed taken with the spirit of the Ephesian uproar; they were boisterous in the extreme, and poor Mr. Kirk could hardly obtain a moment to say a few well-chosen words.”

The applause was like thunder. When Douglass bowed and tried to leave the platform, people rushed forward to seize his hand. They blocked his path. Men and women wept. They shouted until they were hoarse. Nobody heard or heeded “poor Mr. Kirk.” Douglass left the theater at the head of a procession of Londoners, who continued to cheer him as they came out on the street. Curious passersby swelled the ranks. They followed him down Bow Street to Russell and past the Drury Lane Theater. But just beyond the theater Frederick stopped. He faced the crowd and at a motion from him they closed in around him.

“My friends,” he told them, “never in my life have people been so good to me. But I have spoken not to arouse you to cheers, but to move you to action. I have told you of slavery, of oppression, of wrongdoing which is going on in this world. I tell you now that this is true not only of black slaves in America, but of white slaves here in Europe. My friends, these are not times for cheering. Go to yourhomes, to your shops and to your offices! Pass my words along and find the job that you can do to bring about the freedom of all peoples. Go now, quickly!”

He stood facing them until they had dispersed, looking back over their shoulders, talking excitedly.

Then, with a sigh of deep satisfaction, Frederick Douglass went walking on down Russell Street. He turned into Drury Lane and half an hour later was rolling along Fulham Road.

Tavistock Square no longer claimed him as a lodger. When James Buffum returned to America and Douglass set out on his northern tour the attic rooms were given up. Upon his return to London he had been invited to make his home with friends in Chelsea where, in the rare periods between strenuous rounds, he could enjoy a haven from the noise and dirt of the city. He remembered that summer with pleasure—no fog, a mild sun, long walks over the Heath, across Albert Bridge and down by the river. Hours of undisturbed reading in a little arbor behind the cottage continually opened new vistas and broadened his understanding. More than the scars on his back, he deplored his lack of education. Now he seized every opportunity to learn.

Back in America the Mexican War was arousing people. The possibility of more slave states being added to the Union speeded up the Abolitionists. Word was rushed to the Anti-Slavery Society in England to enlist the people of Great Britain, to let the workers of Britain know how slavery in America threatened all their hard-bought gains, and perhaps get them to boycott slave-grown cotton.

Frederick Douglass rose to the need. Thousands packed into the Free Trade Hall in London to hear him; workers in Manchester and Birmingham learned how cotton was produced; merchants and dock hands rubbed shoulders at Concert Hall in Liverpool.

Frederick Douglass spoke to men and women in every walk of life. William Gladstone listened and learned from the black American. In Edinburgh he was entertained by George Combe, and the eminent philosopher listened as well as talked. Together they discussed the Corn Laws, reduction of hours of labor, and what black slavery was doing to the world. During this time Douglass was urged to remain in Europe. He was offered important posts in Ireland and in Scotland.

“Send for your family, Douglass!” they said. “There is work here for you to do.”

But he shook his head. In spite of all his activities, he was growing restless that winter. True, he was presenting the case of the slave to Britain. In a few months he had become famous; but within himself he felt that all this had only been a period of preparation. He was like an athlete who, trained to the pink of condition, was only going through preliminary skirmishes. For Frederick Douglass knew his real work lay ahead—in America.

They were still waiting for the final settlement with Captain Auld. He had asked one hundred and fifty pounds sterling for his slave. The money had been promptly sent.

Then, one morning, a letter reached Douglass in Darlington. It was from George Thompson.

“Your papers have arrived. Come down with us for two or three days before you go to Wales. There is so much to talk about and I know this means an early farewell.”

This was the beginning of his last days in Britain. He was invited to dinners, receptions, teas, scheduled for “farewell” speeches.

“What will you do?” they asked.

“I should like to establish a paper, a paper in which I can speak directly to my people, a paper that will prove whether or not a Negro has mind, the tongue of reason, and can present facts and arguments clearly.”

They placed twenty-five hundred dollars in his hands—as a start toward this enterprise.

“You will come back!” They made it both a question and an affirmation.

“When we have won our fight!” He nodded.

A crowd accompanied him to the boat at Liverpool and stood waving him goodbye. John Bright’s eyes were wet.

“We’ll miss you, Douglass!” said the little spinner from Lancaster.

The shores and wharves and people blurred as he stood on the deck. They had been so good. He reached in his pocket and once more took out the precious papers that declared him free.

The transaction had to be in two parts. Thomas Auld first sold him to his brother Hugh, and then the Philadelphia lawyer had secured the final manumission paper through the Baltimore authorities. It was this second and final sheet that Frederick unfolded—the paper for which the people of England had paid seven hundred and fifty dollars.

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 Bailey, otherwise called 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.SignedHugh Auld.Sealed and delivered in presence ofT. Hanson Belt.[8]

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.

SignedHugh Auld.

Sealed and delivered in presence ofT. Hanson Belt.[8]

He looked out across the waters. He had been away nearly two years. It was spring, and he was going home.

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