that he wished me to bear his name. Since reading
that charming poem myself, I have often thought that, considering the
noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson--black man though
he was--he, far more than I, illustrated the virtues of the Douglas of
Scotland. Sure am I that, if any slave-catcher had entered his domicile
with a view to my recapture, Johnson would have shown himself like him of
the "stalwart hand."

The reader may be surprised at the impressions I had in some way
conceived of the social and material condition of the people at the
North. I had no proper idea of the wealth, refinement, enterprise, and
high civilization of this section of the country. My "Columbian Orator,"
almost my only book, had done nothing to enlighten me concerning Northern
society. I had been taught that slavery was the bottom fact of all
wealth. With this foundation idea, I came naturally to the conclusion
that poverty must be the general condition of the people of the free
States. In the country from which I came, a white man holding no slaves
was usually an ignorant and poverty-stricken man, and men of this class
were contemptuously called "poor white trash." Hence I supposed that,
since the non-slave-holders at the South were ignorant, poor, and
degraded as a class, the non-slave-holders at the North must be in a
similar condition. I could have landed in no part of the United States
where I should have found a more striking and gratifying contrast, not
only to life generally in the South, but in the condition of the colored
people there, than in New Bedford. I was amazed when Mr. Johnson told me
that there was nothing in the laws or constitution of Massachusetts that
would prevent a colored man from being governor of the State, if the
people should see fit to elect him. There, too, the black man's children
attended the public schools with the white man's children, and apparently
without objection from any quarter. To impress me with my security from
recapture and return to slavery, Mr. Johnson assured me that no
slave-holder could take a slave out of New Bedford; that there were men
there who would lay down their lives to save me from such a fate.

The fifth day after my arrival, I put on the clothes of a common laborer,
and went upon the wharves in search of work. On my way down Union street
I saw a large pile of coal in front of the house of Rev. Ephraim
Peabody, the Unitarian minister. I went to the