advanced
him a sum of money to redeem baggage held for fare, and gave him the
name which he has since rendered illustrious.

The intellectual growth of Mr. Douglass from this on was almost
phenomenal. He devoured knowledge with avidity, and retained and
utilized all he got. He used information as good business men use
money. He made every idea bear interest; and now setting the music of
his soul to the words he acquired, he soon earned a reputation as a
gifted conversationalist and an impressive orator.

In the summer of 1841 an anti-slavery convention was held at
Nantucket, Massachusetts, under the direction of William Lloyd
Garrison. Mr. Douglass had attended several meetings in New Bedford,
where he had listened to a defence of his race and a denunciation of
its oppressors. And when he heard of the forthcoming convention at
Nantucket he resolved to take a little respite from the hard work he
was performing in a brass foundry, and attend. Previous to this he had
felt the warm heart of Mr. Garrison beating for the slave through the
columns of the "Liberator"; had received a copy each week for a long
time, had mastered its matchless arguments against slavery, and was,
therefore, possessed with an idea of the anti-slavery cause. At
Nantucket he was sought out of the vast audience and requested by
William C. Coffin, of New Bedford, where he had heard the fervid
eloquence of the young man as an exhorter in the Colored Methodist
Church, to make a speech. The hesitancy and diffidence of Mr. Douglass
were overcome by the importunate invitation to speak. He spoke: and
from that hour a new sphere opened to him; from that hour he began to
exert an influence against slavery which for a generation was second
only to that of Mr. Garrison. He was engaged as an agent of the
Anti-Slavery Society led by Mr. Garrison. He was taken in charge by
George Foster, and in his company made a lecturing tour of the eastern
tier of counties in the old Bay State. The meetings were announced a
few days ahead of the lecturer. He was advertised as a "fugitive
slave," as "a chattel," as "a thing" that could talk and give an
interesting account of the cruelties of slavery. As a narrator he had
few equals among the most polished white gentlemen of all New England.
His white friends were charmed by the lucidity and succinctness of his
account of his life as a slave, and always insisted upon his
narrative. But he was more than a narrator, more than a st