refore, bestowed upon him his own name, which, prefixed by his former
designation, made him "William Wells Brown," a name that will live in
history, while those of the men who claimed him as property would, were
it not for his deeds, have been unknown beyond the town in which they
lived. In nine days from the time he left Wells Brown's house, he
arrived at Cleveland, in the State of Ohio, where he found he could
remain comparatively safe from the pursuit of the man-stealer. Having
obtained employment as a waiter, he remained in that city until the
following spring, when he procured an engagement on board a steam-boat
plying on Lake Erie. In that situation he was enabled, during seven
months, to assist no less than sixty-nine slaves to escape to Canada.
While a slave he had regarded the whites as the natural enemies of his
race. It was, therefore, with no small pleasure that he discovered the
existence of the salt of America, in the despised Abolitionists of the
Northern States. He read with assiduity the writings of Benjamin Lundy,
William Lloyd Garrison, and others; and after his own twenty years'
experience of slavery, it is not surprising that he should have
enthusiastically embraced the principles of "total and immediate
emancipation," and "no union with slaveholders."

In proportion as his mind expanded under the more favourable
circumstances in which he was placed, he became anxious, not merely for
the redemption of his race from personal slavery, but for the moral
elevation of those among them who were free. Finding that habits of
intoxication were too prevalent amongst his coloured brethren, he, in
conjunction with others, commenced a temperance reformation in their
body. Such was the success of their efforts that in three years, in the
city of Buffalo alone, a society of upwards of 500 members was raised
out of a coloured population of 700. Of that society Mr. Brown was
thrice elected President.

The intellectual powers of our author, coupled with his intimate
acquaintance with the workings of the slave system, recommended him to
the Abolitionists as a man eminently qualified to arouse the attention
of the people of the Northern States to the great national sin of
America. In 1843 he was engaged as a lecturer by the Western New-York
Anti-Slavery Society. From 1844 to 1847 he laboured in the anti-slavery
cause in connection with the American Anti-Slavery Society, and from
that period up to the time of his depar