and got
on swimmingly. I married soon after leaving you; in fact, I was engaged
to be married before I left you; and instead of finding my companion a
burden, she was truly a helpmate. She went to live at service, and I to
work on the wharf, and though we toiled hard the first winter, we never
lived more happily. After remaining in New Bedford for three years, I
met with William Lloyd Garrison, a person of whom you have _possibly_
heard, as he is pretty generally known among slaveholders. He put it
into my head that I might make myself serviceable to the cause of the
slave, by devoting a portion of my time to telling my own sorrows, and
those of other slaves, which had come under my observation. This{334}
was the commencement of a higher state of existence than any to which I
had ever aspired. I was thrown into society the most pure, enlightened,
and benevolent, that the country affords. Among these I have
never forgotten you, but have invariably made you the topic of
conversation--thus giving you all the notoriety I could do. I need not
tell you that the opinion formed of you in these circles is far from
being favorable. They have little respect for your honesty, and less for
your religion.

But I was going on to relate to you something of my interesting
experience. I had not long enjoyed the excellent society to which I
have referred, before the light of its excellence exerted a beneficial
influence on my mind and heart. Much of my early dislike of white
persons was removed, and their manners, habits, and customs, so
entirely unlike what I had been used to in the kitchen-quarters on
the plantations of the south, fairly charmed me, and gave me a strong
disrelish for the coarse and degrading customs of my former condition. I
therefore made an effort so to improve my mind and deportment, as to be
somewhat fitted to the station to which I seemed almost providentially
called. The transition from degradation to respectability was indeed
great, and to get from one to the other without carrying some marks of
one's former condition, is truly a difficult matter. I would not have
you think that I am now entirely clear of all plantation peculiarities,
but my friends here, while they entertain the strongest dislike to them,
regard me with that charity to which my past life somewhat entitles me,
so that my condition in this respect is exceedingly pleasant. So far
as my domestic affairs are concerned, I can boast of as comfortable a