to try a sea-voyage, and change of scene and
climate. My wife was enthusiastic about the glorious Republic,--the
great, free America,--the land of my birth. We came, carrying with us
letters from friends in England, that were an open sesame to the most
jealously barred doors. They flew wide at our approach, but to be shut
with speed when my face was seen; hands were cordially extended, and
drawn back as from a loathsome contact when mine went to meet them. In
brief, we were outlawed, ostracised, sacrificed on the altar of this
devilish American prejudice,--wholly American, for it is found nowhere
else in the world,--I for my color, she for connecting her fate with
mine.

"I was so held as to be unable to return at once, and she would not
leave me. Then my brother drooped more and more. His disease needed the
brightest and most cheerful influences. The social and moral atmosphere
stifled him. He died; and we, with grief intensified by bitterness, laid
him in the soil of his own country as though it had been that of the
stranger and enemy.

"At this time the anti-slavery movement was provoking profound thought
and feeling in America. I at once identified myself with it; not because
I was connected with the hated and despised race, but because I loathed
all forms of tyranny, and fought against them with what measure of
strength I possessed. Doubtless this made me a more conspicuous mark for
the shafts of malice and cruelty, and as I could nowhere be hurt as
through her, malignity exhausted its devices there. She was hooted at
when she appeared with me on the streets; she was inundated with
infamous letters; she was dragged before a court of _justice_ upon the
plea that she had defied the law of the state against amalgamation,
forbidding the marriage of white and colored; though at the time it was
known that she was English, that we were married in England and by
English law. One night, in the midst of the riots which in 1838
disgraced this city, our house was surrounded by a mob, burned over us;
and I, with a few faithful friends, barely succeeded in carrying her to
a place of safety,--uncovered, save by her delicate night-robe and a
shawl, hastily caught up as we hurried her away. The yelling fiends, the
burning house, the awful horror of fright and danger, the shock to her
health and strength, the storm,--for the night was a wild and
tempestuous one, which drenched her to the skin,--from all these she
might have recov