as induced to speak out the feelings inspired by the
occasion, and the fresh recollection of the scenes through which I had
passed as a slave. My speech on this occasion is about the only one I
ever made, of which I do not remember a single connected sentence. It
was{279 EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH OF MR. GARRISON} with the utmost difficulty
that I could stand erect, or that I could command and articulate two
words without hesitation and stammering. I trembled in every limb. I
am not sure that my embarrassment was not the most effective part of
my speech, if speech it could be called. At any rate, this is about the
only part of my performance that I now distinctly remember. But excited
and convulsed as I was, the audience, though remarkably quiet before,
became as much excited as myself. Mr. Garrison followed me, taking me
as his text; and now, whether I had made an eloquent speech in behalf of
freedom or not, his was one never to be forgotten by those who heard it.
Those who had heard Mr. Garrison oftenest, and had known him longest,
were astonished. It was an effort of unequaled power, sweeping down,
like a very tornado, every opposing barrier, whether of sentiment or
opinion. For a moment, he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration,
often referred to but seldom attained, in which a public meeting
is transformed, as it were, into a single individuality--the orator
wielding a thousand heads and hearts at once, and by the simple majesty
of his all controlling thought, converting his hearers into the express
image of his own soul. That night there were at least one thousand
Garrisonians in Nantucket! A(sic) the close of this great meeting, I
was duly waited on by Mr. John A. Collins--then the general agent of
the Massachusetts anti-slavery society--and urgently solicited by him
to become an agent of that society, and to publicly advocate its
anti-slavery principles. I was reluctant to take the proffered position.
I had not been quite three years from slavery--was honestly distrustful
of my ability--wished to be excused; publicity exposed me to discovery
and arrest by my master; and other objections came up, but Mr. Collins
was not to be put off, and I finally consented to go out for three
months, for I supposed that I should have got to the end of my story and
my usefulness, in that length of time.

Here opened upon me a new life a life for which I had had no
preparation. I was a "graduate from the peculiar institution,"{280}