s master appropriating to himself the benefit of
his servant's cleverness. Even with a show of right this may be a mean
trick, but it is the way of the world. A large portion of New England men
are at this time claiming each other's patents. I know of an instance down
East, for Southerners can sometimes "tak notes, and prent 'em too." A
gentleman took a friend to his room, and showed him an invention for which
he was about to apply for a patent. The friend walked off with his hands in
his pocket; his principles had met, and passed an appropriation bill; the
invention had become his own--in plain English, he stole it. Washington is
always full of people claiming each other's brains. The lawyers at the
Patent Office have their hands full. They must keep wide awake, too. Each
inventor, when he relates his grievances, brings a witness to maintain his
claim. There is no doubt that, after a while, there will be those who can
testify to the fact of having seen the idea as it passed through the
inventor's mind. The way it is settled at present is this--whoever can pay
the most for the best lawyer comes off triumphantly! Poor George is not the
only smart fellow in the world outdone by somebody better off than himself.

George positively refuses to hear the Bible quoted. He believes in a higher
law, no doubt, Frederic Douglas being editorial expounder; a sort of Moses
of this century, a little less meek, though, than the one who instructed
the Israelites. George won't hear the Bible; he prefers, he says, appealing
to the Almighty himself. This makes me fear his Abolitionist friends are
not doing right by him; putting him up to shooting, and turning Spanish
gentleman, and all sorts of vagaries; to say nothing of disobeying the laws
of the country. No one blames him, though, for escaping from a hard master;
at least, I do not.

It would be a grand thing to stand on the shore of a new country, and see
before you, _free_, every slave and prisoner on the soil of the earth; to
hear their Te Deum ascend to the listening heavens. Methinks the sun would
stand still, as it did of old, and earth would lift up her voice, and lead
the song of her ransomed children; but, alas! this cannot be yet--the time
is not come. Oppression wears her crown in every clime, though it is
sometimes hidden from the gaze of her subjects.

George declares he knows more than his master; "he can read and write
better;" but his logic is bad. He thus discusses the i