than Johnson--black man
though he was--he, far more than I, illustrated the virtues of the
Douglas of Scotland. Sure am I that, if any slave-catcher had entered
his domicile with a view to my recapture, Johnson would have shown
himself like him of the "stalwart hand."

The reader may be surprised at the impressions I had in some way
conceived of the social and material condition of the people at the
North. I had no proper idea of the wealth, refinement, enterprise, and
high civilization of this section of the country. My "Columbian Orator,"
almost my only book, had done nothing to enlighten me concerning
Northern society. I had been taught that slavery was the bottom fact
of all wealth. With this foundation idea, I came naturally to the
conclusion that poverty must be the general condition of the people of
the free States. In the country from which I came, a white man holding
no slaves was usually an ignorant and poverty-stricken man, and men
of this class were contemptuously called "poor white trash." Hence I
supposed that, since the non-slave-holders at the South were ignorant,
poor, and degraded as a class, the non-slave-holders at the North must
be in a similar condition. I could have landed in no part of the
United States where I should have found a more striking and gratifying
contrast, not only to life generally in the South, but in the condition
of the colored people there, than in New Bedford. I was amazed when Mr.
Johnson told me that there was nothing in the laws or constitution of
Massachusetts that would prevent a colored man from being governor of
the State, if the people should see fit to elect him. There, too, the
black man's children attended the public schools with the white man's
children, and apparently without objection from any quarter. To impress
me with my security from recapture and return to slavery, Mr. Johnson
assured me that no slave-holder could take a slave out of New Bedford;
that there were men there who would lay down their lives to save me from
such a fate.

The fifth day after my arrival, I put on the clothes of a common
laborer, and went upon the wharves in search of work. On my way down
Union street I saw a large pile of coal in front of the house of Rev.
Ephraim Peabody, the Unitarian minister. I went to the kitchen door and
asked the privilege of bringing in and putting away this coal. "What
will you charge?" said the lady. "I will leave that to you, madam." "You
may put it away