y
meetings and movements were promptly made known in advance. My true
friends, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips, had no faith in the power of
Massachusetts to protect me in my right to liberty. Public sentiment
and the law, in their opinion, would hand me over to the tormentors. Mr.
Phillips, especially, considered me in danger, and said, when I showed
him the manuscript of my story, if in my place, he would throw it into
the fire. Thus, the reader will observe, the settling of one difficulty
only opened the way for another; and that though I had reached a free
state, and had attained position for public usefulness, I ws(sic) still
tormented with the liability of losing my liberty. How this liability
was dispelled, will be related, with other incidents, in the next
chapter.

CHAPTER XXIV. _Twenty-One Months in Great Britain_

GOOD ARISING OUT OF UNPROPITIOUS EVENTS--DENIED CABIN
PASSAGE--PROSCRIPTION TURNED TO GOOD ACCOUNT--THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY--THE
MOB ON BOARD THE "CAMBRIA"--HAPPY INTRODUCTION TO THE BRITISH
PUBLIC--LETTER ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON--TIME AND
LABORS WHILE ABROAD--FREEDOM PURCHASED--MRS. HENRY RICHARDSON--FREE
PAPERS--ABOLITIONISTS DISPLEASED WITH THE RANSOM--HOW MY ENERGIES
WERE DIRECTED--RECEPTION SPEECH IN LONDON--CHARACTER OF THE SPEECH
DEFENDED--CIRCUMSTANCES EXPLAINED--CAUSES CONTRIBUTING TO THE SUCCESS OF
MY MISSION--FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND--TESTIMONIAL.

The allotments of Providence, when coupled with trouble and anxiety,
often conceal from finite vision the wisdom and goodness in which
they are sent; and, frequently, what seemed a harsh and invidious
dispensation, is converted by after experience into a happy and
beneficial arrangement. Thus, the painful liability to be returned again
to slavery, which haunted me by day, and troubled my dreams by night,
proved to be a necessary step in the path of knowledge and usefulness.
The writing of my pamphlet, in the spring of 1845, endangered my
liberty, and led me to seek a refuge from republican slavery in
monarchical England. A rude, uncultivated fugitive slave was driven, by
stern necessity, to that country to which young American gentlemen go
to increase their stock of knowledge, to seek pleasure, to have their
rough, democratic manners softened by contact with English aristocratic
refinement. On applying for a passage to England, on board the
"Cambria", of the Cunard line, my friend, James N. Buffum, of{285}
Lynn, Massachuset