verpool. The taking of a pilot on board at eleven
o'clock, warned us to prepare to quit our ocean palace and seek other
quarters. At a little past three o'clock, the ship cast anchor, and we
were all tumbled, bag and baggage, into a small steamer, and in a few
moments were at the door of the Custom-House. The passage had only been
nine days and twenty-two hours, the quickest on record at that time, yet
it was long enough. I waited nearly three hours before my name was
called, and when it was, I unlocked my trunks and handed them over to
one of the officers, whose dirty hands made no improvement on the work
of the laundress. First one article was taken out, and then another,
till an _Iron Collar_ that had been worn by a female slave on the banks
of the Mississippi, was hauled out, and this democratic instrument of
torture became the centre of attraction; so much so, that instead of
going on with the examination, all hands stopped to look at the "Negro
Collar."

Several of my countrymen who were standing by, were not a little
displeased at answers which I gave to questions on the subject of
Slavery; but they held their peace. The interest created by the
appearance of the Iron Collar, closed the examination of my luggage. As
if afraid that they would find something more hideous, they put the
Custom-House mark on each piece, and passed them out, and I was soon
comfortably installed at Brown's Temperance Hotel, Clayton Square.

No person of my complexion can visit this country without being struck
with the marked difference between the English and the Americans. The
prejudice which I have experienced on all and every occasion in the
United States, and to some extent on board the _Canada_, vanished as
soon as I set foot on the soil of Britain. In America I had been bought
and sold as a slave, in the Southern States. In the so-called free
States, I had been treated as one born to occupy an inferior
position,--in steamers, compelled to take my fare on the deck; in
hotels, to take my meals in the kitchen; in coaches, to ride on the
outside; in railways, to ride in the "negro car;" and in churches, to
sit in the "negro pew." But no sooner was I on British soil, than I was
recognised as a man, and an equal. The very dogs in the streets
appeared conscious of my manhood. Such is the difference, and such is
the change that is brought about by a trip of nine days in an Atlantic
steamer.

I was not more struck with the treatment o