n the Negro, as a man; that because of his assumed natural
inferiority, people reconciled themselves to his enslavement and
oppression, as things inevitable, if not desirable. The grand thing to
be done, therefore, was to change the estimation in which the colored
people of the United States were held; to remove the prejudice which
depreciated and depressed them; to prove them worthy of a higher
consideration; to disprove their alleged inferiority, and demonstrate
their capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and
prejudice had assigned to them. I further stated, that, in my judgment,
a tolerably well conducted press, in the hands of persons of the
despised race, by calling out the mental energies of the race itself; by
making them acquainted with their own latent powers; by enkindling among
them the hope that for them there is a future; by developing their moral
power; by combining and reflecting their talents--would prove a most
powerful means of removing prejudice, and of awakening an interest
in them. I further informed them--and at that time the statement was
true--that there was not, in the United States, a single newspaper
regularly published by the colored people; that many attempts had been
made to establish such papers; but that, up to that time, they had all
failed. These views I laid before my friends. The result was, nearly two
thousand five hundred dollars were speedily{302} raised toward starting
my paper. For this prompt and generous assistance, rendered upon my bare
suggestion, without any personal efforts on my part, I shall never
cease to feel deeply grateful; and the thought of fulfilling the noble
expectations of the dear friends who gave me this evidence of their
confidence, will never cease to be a motive for persevering exertion.

Proposing to leave England, and turning my face toward America, in
the spring of 1847, I was met, on the threshold, with something which
painfully reminded me of the kind of life which awaited me in my native
land. For the first time in the many months spent abroad, I was met with
proscription on account of my color. A few weeks before departing from
England, while in London, I was careful to purchase a ticket, and secure
a berth for returning home, in the "Cambria"--the steamer in which I
left the United States--paying therefor the round sum of forty pounds
and nineteen shillings sterling. This was first cabin fare. But on going
aboard the Cambria, I found