The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-19 00:00:00

with respect to your fourth question, I wish to be more ex.
plicit, and to remark, that although I have been in the habit of
daily contributing my assistance toa vast number of destitute poor,
ever since my residence in this province, now seventeen dears, I do
not remember ever having been solicited for alms by more than one
or two people of colour, during the whole course of that period.

I am, your respectful humble servant,
JOHN 11, DUNIN.
Receiver. General, Upper Canada.

I may observe that, in addition to this testimony I have seen
many officers in the British service from Canada, who told me
that it was universally true that the coloured people, during
the border disturbances, were, in every instance, loyal to the
British Throne—they held posts of responsibility and trust,
which were denied to most others.—( Hear and cheers.) In a
correspondence which I held with Hiram Wilson, who
had for four years stood unaided and alone, the advo-
cate, the teacher, the brother of those twelve thousand
fugitives, whose character as a man and a Christian is
not only above suspicion, but above praise, ho says :
It is well known that no people in the country were more
prompt and efficient in their efforts to suppress rebellion and
repel invasion than they in 1837-8. Their conduct as soldiers
has elicited from the civil and military authorities the highest
praise. In times of peril and alarm, many of them were senti-
nelled along the frontiers in the most responsible places, and
were invariably true to their trust. They manifested a willing-
ness to moisten the soil of their asylum with their choicest
blood, orrningle it with the waters that roll between them and
the land of slavery, rather than see the American flag cross the
line.—( Loud cheering, ) Their lore of liberty has been fully
demonstrated by their mode of escape. I will state, however,
a fact which occurred at Niagara in the fall of 1837, which may
serve to illustrate this point. A slave named .Mosel}, had made
his escape in the spring- of that year from a Mr. Cas-
tlemain, of Lexington Kentucky. He was arrested by
Castleman, and committed to gaol at Niagara, under charge
of theft, alleging that he had stolen his horse. Accordingly,
he appeared before the Lieutenant-Governor, and claimed him
as a felon. The charge of horse. stealing was utterly fallacious,
according to slave laws, and he might with as much propriety
have inEcted the horse for running away with the slave as the
slave for running away with the horse—(A laugh )—both being
computed chattels in the hands of their owners. Strange logic,
surely, that one article of property should be guilty of stealing
another. Howbeit, %ir Francis B. Head gave up the unfor-
tunate prisoner, who lay in jail three weeks before the attempt
was made to deliver him. During this time the coloured
people lay about the jail night and day, watching and waiting
with intense anxiety, determined on the rescue of their bro-
ther, or death in the struggle. The prisoner, in the meantime,
besought them if possible to spare 11;ni from going into bondage,
even by the desperate means of putting a ball through him,
that he might bleed and (lie on British ground. rather than go
back again into bondage. At length, on the 15th September,
the deputy-sheriff, with his posse of armed men, went about
the work in earnest. The people, white and coloured, gathered
around the common in large numbers. The prisoner was
taken out in his hand-cuffs, and put into an open waggon in
midst of keepers. As the waggon proceeded through the inul.
titude, the prisoner leaped into the midst of the crowd—burst
off his hand-cuff's, which had previously been filed—bounded
over a high fence, and made his escape. The sheriff, on being
apprised of the fact, ordered his men to fire. Several guns
were discharged at the same moment, when Herbert fell, and,
weltering in his blood, in the space of half an hour died.
Before he died he inquired for the prisoner, and on being told
that the prisoner was safe, he said, " Then I (lie happy." He
had taken an affectionate farewell of his friends in the morning,
expressing his apprehension that he should never greet them
again on earth, and at the same time his settled determination
to lay down his life for the rescue of his brother.—( Hear,
hear.) Since I have alluded to brother Wilson, permit me to
say a word more of him, and I love to mention his name before
the World's Convention, for his heart is so large that he has
made the world his country, and his countrymen are all man-
kind. He had reached man's estate before the grace of God
touched his heart. In the furor and freshness of his just love
to the Saviour, he turned from the plough to Lane seminary,
with the noble design of fitting himself for the work of human
salvation. He remained there for some years, and by manual
labour administered to his necessities, and pressed on in hia educa-
tion ; when that infamous Act passed at Lane which made free
discussion a crime in her walls, his noble spirit was roused with
indignation, and he shook off the dust of his feet upon it for-
ever, and went on foot to his father's house. He took with
him a coloured student of Lane, whose free soul could not endure
the yoke of the divine upon mind after shaking off the yoke
of the slaveholder from the body. After a long journey at
night he stopped with his coloured brother at the humble cot li
-
tage of his father to rest. But he had no sooner crossed the
threshold than his brother took down a rifle, and deliberately
charging it, levelled it at the heart which was beating with
Christian love in his brother's bosom, said, " Now, Hiram, you
may have your choice; either leave the house with your
nigger, or die."—(Hear, hear, bear.) Expelled from
the sweet charities of home, he led on his black
brother by night, shedding tears as they journeyed.
I will now read for you the words of a coloured man taken from
his own lips. I have ascertained his whole history, and you
may rely upon the statements being correct :—" I believe that
one of the wickedest and most awful things in creation, and
the root and bottom, and heart of all the evil, is prejudice
against colour. There is most, or quite as much of this at the
North as there is at the South, for I can speak from experience.
There is that disgrace upon us, that many people think it is a
disgrace to them to have us come into a room where they be,
for fear that they will be blacked, or disgraced, by us poor off-
scouring of earth. But, worse than this, this same disgrace is
cast on our colour in the sanctuary of the living God. In almost
all the meeting-houses you see the ' nigger pew ;' and when
they come to administer the Lord's Supper, they send us off
into some dark pew, in one corner, by ourselves, as though they
thought we would disgrace them, and black them, or something.
Why, it was only at the last sacrament in our church this took
place. All communicants were asked to come and partake to-
gether, and I came down from the gallery, and as I came into
the door to go and sit down among them, one of the elders
stretched out his arm, with an air of disdain, and beckoned me
away to a corner pew, where there was no soul within two or
three pews of me, as though he had power to save or cast off.
Now think what a struggle I had, when I sat down, to get
my mind into a proper state for the solemn business I was going
to do. First I thought it was hard for me to be so cast off by
my brethren in the church, and a feeling rose, and I fought
against it, and, finally, I thought I could submit to my fate ;
and I believed God could see me, and hear me cry, and accept
my love, as well there as though I sat in the midst of them.
And it is the strangest thing in the world, too, that Christian
people can act so. There must be some of the love of Chris-
tianity wanting in their hearts, or they could not treat a brother
in Christ in that way. As I sat there I thought, can there
be any such place as a dark hole, or black pew, or behind the
door, or under the fence, in heaven ? If there is such a spirit
or policy there, I don't feel a very anxious desire to go there.'
The Bible says, ' God is no respecter of persons.'—(Cheers.)
And what is worse than all, this spirit is carried to the grave-
yard ; and for fear that the dead body of a black man shall
black up or disgrace the body of a white, they go and dig holes
round under the fences, and often in a wet corner, or under the
barn, and put all of our colour in them ; for every one may be
an eye-witness if he as ill go to our graveyard and others ; for I
have lived now going on fourteen years in one place, and any
coloured person who has been buried at all there, has been
buried all along under the fences, arid close up to the old barn
that stands there. I know God will receive the souls of such
just as well as though they were buried in the middle of the
yard, but. I say this, to let the reader know what a cruel and
unholy thing prejudice against colour is, and what it will do to
us poor black people. Now I know that all this is the reason
why the people of our colour don't rise any faster. The scorn,
the disgrace that every body flings on them, keeps them down,
and they are sinking. and such treatment is enough to sink the
Rocky mountains. Now I know from experience that the better
you treat a black man the better he will behave; for his own
pride will keep la, ambition up, and he will try to rise ; why if
you should treat white folks so they would grow bad just as fast.
Why, who don't know that a body will try to get the good will
of those who treat them well, so as t i make them respect them
still more ? And it is just like climbing a ladder ; you can get up
a round any day, but if you keep knocking a man on the head
with the club of prejudice, how in the name of common sense
can he climb up ? Now this is most as bad as slavery ; for
slavery keeps the foot on the black man's neck all the time, and
don't let them rise at all ; and prejudice keeps knocking him
down as fast as he gets up ; and we ought not to go to the
South till we can get the people of the North to treat our colour
like men and women. A good many people oppose abolitionists,
and say, Why what will you do with the negroes when they
are free? They will become drunken sots and vagabonds like
our negroes at the North ; why don't they rise ?' I can answer
that question in a hurry ! The reason is, because they don't
give us the same chance with white folks; they won't take us
into their schools and colleges, and seminaries, and we are not
allowed to go into good society to improve us ; and if we set up
business they won't patronize us ; they want us to be barbers,
and cooks, and whitewashers, and shoeblacks, and ostlers, and
such kind of mean low business. We are not suffered to attend
any pleasant places, or enjoy the advantages of debating schools,
and libraries, and societies, &c., and all these thing; are just
what improves the whites so fast. And if we by hook or by
crook get into any such place, why some fellow will step on our
toes, and give us a shove, and say, Stand back nig, you can
see just as well a little further off.' Now all these things are
coloured as
fast
fol you search out
what keep us so much in the back ground ; for if we have a
nt I: e world
as anybody For there
acirienseneia'rwt we
and getup
respectablei
their history you will find that they once had a good chance
to get learning, and they jumped alter it. I think one of the
greatest things the abolition folks should be after is to help the
tree people of colour to get up in the world, and grow respect-
able, and educated, and then we will proveserst,olratin:udNis 'teteidbi be in
rirelietodbfoll•eenel
,dbs(r),(r),itui.
false what our enemies
ng
nd
osAapybe
o,n
thistier thatd owoteirmsa ret
oe
Obaelbltet:ee.
irci
that
tai
er
entered this city of refuge and school of the prophets. After
completing his education, the time came for him to enter upon
his work, and standing on the south shore of Lake Erie, he
looked across its waters upon 10,000 fugitives in Canada, who
had been driven from their country by the scourge of oppres-
sion, and conceived the grand design of bearing to then; science
and salvation. Let me read a word about his consecration for
the work at Oberlin, He says—" I must here mention a few
things which may appear childish, but I hope you will bear with
me. In October, 1835, I had made preparations to go to my
scene of labour, and I called together about thirty of the most
devoted Christians in Obe..lin, who were deeply interested in
the work. We had a melting season of consecration and
d in rich profusion upon us.
Divine influences wrought under-
taking. Heaven's blesblessingdeseende
from vwrought upon many a hearts t prayer to the God of missions for his blessing upon the
of the interview.
Deep solemnity prevailed. We sung the following lines, which
ge-
nerous sympathy flowed in gushing streams. Almost every
countenance was bathed in tears at the close
in view of this meeting I had previously composed
"Dear Saviour, I sin wholly thine,
To yield my heart
to thy control.
Redeemed and saved by blood divine,
Low at thy feet I cast my soul.
Through life, in death, I'll cleave to thee,
And thy disciple ever be.
"'Tis a poor sacrifice I bring,
To give my sinful self away,
Thoug vile I am, Eternal King,
I conic and own thy righteous sway.
My will is lost, thine let me know,
And teach me thine alone to do.
" Since thou didst leave thy blessed abode,
To sigh and groan in sorrow's vale,
I'll imitate tdi' incarnate God,
By faith, and love, and burning zeal.
I'll live, and toil, and dare, and die,
To raise the downcast poor on high.
" I'll toil 'mid Afric's burning sand,
Or Judah's Pagan plains explore,
i,
Or in thy inisnamed Christian l an
Relieve the broken-hearted poor.
I'll pleptl their cause, or find my grave,
In pleading for the mangled slave.
" The mandate conies—l must obey,
Must bid farewell to friends and home;
Children of sorrow, far away,
In gloomy shades of darkness roam.
Whv should I stay—why linger here--
While souls are sinking in despair?
" Here, Lord, 1 am • my willing feet
Shall at thy bidding come and go;
My aching heart shall pant and heat,
And ceaseless
yearn o'er human woe.
I'll spare no toil—no duty shun, ~
But pray thy will, 0 God, be done !
These lines expressed but faintly toy feelings at the time, which

were only a prelude to permanent blessedness, in connexion
wirh unabated devotion to the sacred cause of humanity. The
world receded from my view, and dwindled away into insignifi-
cance, compared with the glory of God and the great interests
of his kingdom. Though poor in worldly substance, I was
rich in faith, doubly blessed in striving to i'aiitate my heavenly
Master, who for our sakes became poor, that we, through his
poverty, might be rich. I started on foot for Upper Canada--
a journey of some hundreds of miles, with a few shillings in
my pocket, looking to God alone for protection 'and succour.
The path of duty was clear and plain before me. - I could net
be deterred for lack of funds, although I knew that the poor
afflicted people whose welfare I sought to promote could not
reward me, nor even defray my travelling expences, and so I
determined to administer to my necessities with my
own hands, cheered by God's promises, and sweetly
constrained by his love I started for the British do-
minions, with the patriarchal motto, " Jehovah Jireh,"
constantly before me. I had the pleasure of taking a noble
son of Virginia with me, who was flying from Republican
institutions, and panting for British freedom. The Lord
in great mercy wrought his deliverance, and I had the pleasure
in witnessing, in his case, as in many others subsequently, the
glorious trat sformation from American chattlehood to British
manhood. 1 first entered the Province through freedom's
great westere gate at the head of Lake Erie, which hangs upon
everlasting hinges, and opens of its own accord. I found the
coloured population very numerous, and they are' many of them
engaged in agricultural and mechanical pursuits, obtaining a
livelihood by honest industry, in a manner highly creditable to
any people. The first evening I preached to them at Colches-
ter on these words—" The Spirit of the Lord God is upon ,-ee,
because He hath anointed :me to preach the Gospel to the
poor," &c. Here I met with an old man named Wilkes, a
Baptist preacher, familiarly called Elder Wilkes. He was a
native of Africa—had been kidnapped from there when a child
10 years old ; had been a slave 50 years in Virginia, and had
been now in Canada 20 years, making him 80 years old. After -
service he invited me to his house. I told him I was engaged
to go to another house to lodge, and would see him in the
morning. " Well," said he, " where will you be ?" "At
Mr. Thornton's," said I. " Well," said he, " we'll have the
neighbours called together, and have a meeting to-morrow
night, and am going to have you taken up as a spy." Having
spent the next day in visiting from house to house, I repaired
in the dusk of evening to the place proposed for meeting. The
house was filled, and at length Elder Wilkes came in quite out
of breath, so much so that he could hardly support his totter-
ing frame ; he ,was grievously afflicted with the phthisic.
After resting for a few moments he rose and clapped his hand
softly on My shoulder, and said in a low tone of voice, " The
time is now come for us to take you up as a spy." So he com-
menced addressing the people—gave a concise history of their
' sufferings while in' bondage; their perilous flight therefrom,
their toils and hardships on entering the country, cutting away
the brush, putting up their cabins, &c. &c. He spoke in high
terms of their affectionate and loyal regard for the British
Government—said he felt quite independent whether persons
came among them out of good motives or bad motives ; that the
Government and law protected them. " But there may be good
spies as well as bad ones. We have our friends as well
'as our enemies on the Amerioan side, or we never
could have got here—and they are very anxious
fo our prosperity.—(Cheers.) They hear many strange
stories about us, that we can't take care of ourselves, and all
that, and now Brother Wilson has come among us to knew if
these things are so. Here's a spy that has come over to spy
out our liberties. Bless the Lord for such a spy. Bless the
Lord that this spy has come among us !"—(Cheers.) The old
man's voice faltered so he could hardly speak, while the tears
rolled clown his wrinkled cheeks like rain drops. I preached to
them the Gospel, and the Lord blessed it (for they have been
kept in such brutal ignorance and treated so unkindly that
when the Cross of Christ and the love of Jesus is proclaimed it
melts their hearts). I proposed to supply them with a teacher,
who would educate them and tell them about the Gospel, and
they seemed much pleased. They had long groped in dark- 1
ness, and were thirsting insatiably for the light. The old Elder
rose and spoke again, and I shall not soon forget what he said,
" This new light," said he (alluding to myself) which has
come among us runs exactly parallel with what I have told you
for years. I have told you that you must repent and get out
of the bondage of sin, or the Lord would curse you. I have
often thought of the hildren of Israel. When they came out
of Egypt, the Lord led them through the wilderness ; with a
mighty hand he delivered them ; but they soon rebelled against
him, and forsook their great deliverer, so that he was obliged
to sell them over to their enemies to punish them for their dis-
obedience ; and so it will be with us if we don't strive to get
out of the bondage of sin. But what ungrateful beings we are,
when the Lord has done so much for us and our abolition
friends are stirring and praying for us, and here we are so
sluggish and stupid. Why ! we are like the hogs under the
oak trees that crack and eat the acorns, without so much as
looking up to view the hands that shake the limbs." I give
the above as a specimen, in his own language, of African in-
tellect, unembellished by education.—(Hear, hear.) Now, if
I have not wearied your patience—(Cheers and cries of " No,
no")—I will go on and read what a young man, who had fled
from slavery, says. He has been several years in Canada. I
know him well, and for the last six months I was in America
he sat under my preaching in the church where the first Anti-
Slavery Convention was held in New York, in 1835, when a
mob of gentlemen of property and standing broke into our
temple and tore down the altar of God. Capt. Stewart, who sits
over yonder, I think was there, and well plied with these
same gentleman's hard. but not convincing arguments (I mean
brick bats)—and also James Fuller, both • of whom from that
day to this have proved that rotten eggs and brick-bats cannot
overthrow principles_ When a young 'man rushed up to the
altar, and, presenting a weapon to his venerable father's heart,
who held the constitution of the New York State Anti-Sla-
very SoCiety in his hand, and told him that if he didn't give it
up to the mob, he should shed his bloed—" You may shed the
blood of the father who begat you," said the old man, " but
you shill not have this Constitution till it has been adopted."
And then the old man held the roll up before the congregation,
'and made his voice heard above the infernal yells of the infu-
riated mob.—" If you will adopt this Constitution say aye !"
And then came back the shout of freedom, and it rung through
the arches like peals of thunder through the vault of Heaven ;
and there stood the old man, on whose head the frosts of eighty
winters had gathered, armed only with the faith of Jesus.
" Glory to God;" he exclaimed, when the shout of free-
dom- came back ;... now yon. may have the Constitution."—
(Loud and general cheering.) Then it was that Mr. Smith,
'the ertat apostle of Ainesican abobition--(Cheers)—who had
never joined us becauie he did not like our measures, and had
only come as a spectator, was converted to our principles. He
liked our measures so much better than the measures of our
enemies, that he thought he might as well advocate them.—
" Is it true," said he, " that freemen cannot open their voice
in God's house? Then they shall in my own—to , Peterb3-
rough—to Peterborough." We left the temple of God, and
en masse went 30 miles to his house, and there in his large
dwelling we found refuge. He gave us his heart and his
hand, and thousands with them.—(Cheers.) Ah, Sir, we
have found in America that men can be mobbed into prin-
ciple, but they can't be mobbed out of it—(Cheers)—for that
abolition which is cradled in the storm is the only kind that
has ever been worth having. Like the oak on our native
mountains, it must battle with the tempests of heaven if it
would strike its roots too deep to be uptorn.—( Loud cheers )
But I have wandered so far from my subject, that I had forgot
what I was talking about. Ah ! these mobs are glorious
things, Sir t—(Laughter.) Oh ! I was talking about my co-
loured brethren. But here I want to tell you a story about
Auburn Theological Seminary, if you will let me.—( Hear.)
I was at that time a member of that Institution, and
when the call was issued for that Convention, the
forty abolitionists out of the seventy-five members of
that institution sent a committee to the Faculty, respectfully
praying that we might send our Delegates down. The Fa-
culty, composed of learned Divines, were divided. Dr Perrine
(peace to his ashes), for soon after I stood by his death-bed,
and he died a glorified abolitionist; and while " in the chamber
where the good man trot his fate, privileged above the com-
mon walk of virtuous life, quite in the range of heaven"—while
eternity was pouring its; full tide of illustration over all theacts
of time, I heard him give his testimony in favour of abolition),
Dr. Perrine stood firm. and told us to go; Dr. S. H. Cox,
now of Brooklyn, New York, a man that I love, and
who, as my Professor and father, did me good, who was con-
verted to what abolition he ever hail (and he never had any
more than he needed) by coming to England—( Hear, hear)—
Dr. Cox, I ant sorry to say, did not di,play that firmness arid
majesty of principle we hoped for ; and the other gentlemen's
names had better not be mentioned. We sent our Committee
again, resolving that we would send our delegation, whether
the Faculty consented or not ; and some of us told the Commit-
tee to inform them that we should be compelled to find another
Hall of Theology if we could not enjoy our principles in
that. They said, " Gentlemen, you can take your own
course," and accompanind the answer with some very signi-
ficant hints about our ruing the consequences. Some of our
professed friends quailed under the frown. But they dared not
say their souls were their own without first asking the Faculty ;
and they shook their heads and said, " I don't know, brethren,
how this will do"—( Hear, bear)—and we have as many such
abolitionists in America as can stand between this and Totten-
ham.—(Cheers.) But we sent our delegation ; and after
this thew good brethren did not shake their heads any more,
until we wanted to send them again, and then they shook as
bad as ever. From that day abolition has triumphed in those
Halls —( Much cheering ) But I have forgotten, my good
friends, and I almost fear to ask your patience longer.—( Cries
of "Go on.") Well, I was saying that my coloured brother
sat in the Minister's pew, which conies as near to being a negro
pew as any in our Church ; for I would give a runaway slave
the highest post of honour in God's house, coining up all hacked
and scarred from the places of southern slavery. Well, this
good brother, who is now studying under Bariali
Green, one of frecdoi-a's champions, put into my hand,
at my request, a short account of his escape from
slavery. Shall I read it ?—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
He says, " I was born near Nashville in Taumassee, on the
20th of April, 1813, and by the laws of my native state I was
free-born—for my mother was legally free. My father was a
white planter of wealth and respectability, (they both mean
one in the South )—and my mother was the daughter of native
Africans ; she was a servant in my father's family, where I
was - born and lived until my twenty-second year, when I was
compelled to fly from my home to -protect what remaining
freedom thelopirit and institutions of my native State had left
me.—(Planters you know; make nothing of selling their own
children; and will you pardon me for saying, that a Lieute-
nant-Governor of a slave State, once told a good friend of
mine, that he generally sold ten or twelve slaves a year, and
took care to be their father to improve the breed.) From
childhood,t he continues, " I was treated like a slave,
and tough to believe that the race to which I belonged was
doomed to hopeless and perpetual bondage. Never having
seen the nominally free coloured people around me possessed
of the rights which I have since learned belonged to all men,
I thought that I must yield to my destiny-. The light of science
never dawned upon my mind—l could not read, or spell, or
write my own name, until I was six feet tall, and although
every ray of light was shut out from my mind, and the thick
darkness of ignorance covered me, yet I sometimes felt irre-
pressible aspirations for freedom, which slavery can never
wholly destroy in the human bosom. At times I reasoned,
feebly it is true, but on correct principles, about my con-
dition and prospects, and always with pain, for I clearly saw
that I never could inherit my liberty in the place I lived,
and that I must turn my back on those I loved best, if I
gained the boon of freedom, and it was long before I could
decide to cut the ties that bound me to my kindred. For al-
though I am not conscious of feeling like a child towards my
natural father, yet my mother I loved tenderly, and the thought
of parting with her who bore me was painful. But at last the
power of circumstances urged me up to a decision. A Georgia
trader was in the neighbourhood buying up slaves, and I was
bargained for. I saw now most clearly that God had thrown
my protection and defence upon my own arm, and that I
never should be free without an effort, and as we love nothing
on earth so dear as personal freedom, I determined to make one bold
stroke for liberty, and blow the faint light of hope into a ,
flame, or quench its beams for ever, At length, after many
the
day
0% had
parting
struggles with myself, Christmas came,
upon for my escape, and then the struggle came —.
with my mother. At midnight I went to her cabin, and found
—what?—her ready for the separation ! We were alone and
we spent nearly an hour, I should think, together; and you
will not think it was stranov that we both wept. ( Now see the
majesty and generosity of woman.) She thought it best for
me to go—for I was to be sold to a trader—and, as we 722,3 t
part, she said she had rather sfeo,
e reiff
}emerged,
s I e p tmt
atynted, certain
d towards
and'the
North Star when we parted; for,
drearY bondage awed me, and in this effort I could but fail.
She knew that I had a long and dreary pilgrimage before me,
and that my path would be beset with dangers, and slle in_
tshearted b the way, hilt:press on
treated me not to grow fain
and die, if die I roßst, the e 4 nt.4 o free man. Said she.:

" Jarum, don't you come back alive." The Spartans would have made that woman a queen before Christianity came into I
the world; but a Christian people not only made her a slave,
but a concubine—( Hear, and cheers. A " Your life," said she,
"is worth the effort ; lam too old to make it." She put a
few dollars into my hand--the fruit :s f many days' saving and
toil, and then she prayed for God's blessing on her boy. She
folded me to her bosom for the last time, and kissed me, and I
stole out of the cabin, and I have not seen her to this day.
This was Christmas night, 1834. I had one companion in soy
journey—a noble young man, who had resolved to fly with me
to the land of freedom. I will not trouble you with the incidents
of our journey—it was a long and painful one. For two months, the
most severe in winter, we travelled on by night, through deep
snows, across mountains and rivers, sleeping in old barns and
deserted buildings, sometimes, -and, at others, on the snow;
suffering much with hunger and the cold. But this we endured
cheerfully, for by it we were gaining our freedom—that with-
out which all else ceased to be n' value. Whether we were pur-
sued or not I cannot tell ; but we passed on as rapidly as pos-
sible, and, at the end of,two months, we reached the border .f
the British empire, where we first dared to reveal ourselves,
and here, blessed be God,, we were sure of pro-
tection. I will pass over my history till the year
1836, when the Rev. Hiram Wilson came into Canada.
I first heard of him as a kidnapper. He landed at Niagara,
and we took him up as a spy. We had been so often deceived
by the kidnappers that we had just occasion for alarm, when a
white man from the States appeared among us with friendly
professions. A thorough examination took place, his papers were
read, and we became perfectly satisfied that he was an angel of
mercy. NVe formed a large procession to escort him up to St.
Catherine's, twelve miles, to do away with the suspicion which
existed there of the same kind. And thus he snowed on from
settlement to settlement, in a sort of triumphal procession.
Wherever he went he preached the Gospel of the Grace of
God, and he was greeted with enthusiasm and joy by the
coloured people. Wherever he went he lived among the
coloured people in our same humble style. He eat, drank,
slept, prayed, and preached in our log-cabins. After walking
some hundreds of miles over the province, he began to establish
schools, and labour for the people. He is about thirty-five
years of age, of hardy and robust frame and great energy, and
resolution of character. He is a self-made man, and is as well
qualified to instruct the people in all the departments of mecha-
nical and agricultural life, as to enlighten their minds or im-
prove their hearts. But the piety and goodness of his heart
is the most extraordinary thing in his character. He seems
to know nothing among the people, at home, abroad, in the
pulpit, and out of it, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. He
always displays the spirit of his Master, and his influence over
the coloured population is almost unbounded. The sacrifices
he has made for us have been very great. He has several times
been on foot all over the province to preach and to are of
the people, keep up the schools, and relieve their n?Fessities.
I have known of his walking through the snow many days thirty
, or forty miles in the coldest weather, and he always carrying
with him his provisions and food, to save his money for the
poor. And I have known of his travelling hundreds of miles
without spending more than a few shillings.--( Hear, hear. )
His house is open to fugitives, who are directed to him from all
parts of the country, and it is always full. They come into his
house destitute of clothing or money, dejected and heart -broken
by slavery—they go out clothed and comforted.—(Cheers. )
He finds them employment, and soon after their arrival they
arc established in some honest employment. He is particu-
larly friendly to the British Government, and he teaches all
the coloured people to cherish the same feelings, and well
they may. He calls Canada the Holy Land of America,
where fugitives from a worse than Egytian bondage find secu-
rity and repose.—( Cheers.) His teachers are much like him-
self ; they endure labour and toil like himself, for no other re-
ward than a bare self-denying subsistence. They board with
the coloured people, and are subjected to great privations. I
visited two female teachers in the country, who lived ina log
cabin, only a few feet square, and into it were crowded all their
means and comforts of existence. They subsist chiefly upon
the provisions that arc sent in by the coloured people, and
they had seen no meat for several months. But in connexion
with the little help they get from Mr. Wilson, and the white
and coloured neighbours they do make out to live, and they tell
me, many of them, even with tears, that they have no cause for
complaint, and will not complain so long as their condition is
tolerable. The character of the people has rapidly improved
in every respect ; in morality and religion the improvement
has been very great. Many have engaged in mechanical and
agricultural pursuits. Ido not know of a:class of people that
have such a thirst for knowledge, or make such rapid improve-
ment in acquiring it, or so many sacrifices to obtain it. This
mission is, I think, the best and noblest in the world, and there
I hope we shall see trained up a noble and a holy land of
brothers, who shall go forth to carry civilization and the Bible
to the soon to be liberated millions of America and their
brethren on the African continent."—( Hear.) Now if you
will bear with me a moment longer I will close.—(" Go on.")
After long years of hard and cruel bondage have passed away,
slavery becomes so intolerable that its poor victim begins to
meditate his escape. There are bosoms in which the fires of
liberty never grow dim, and they burn on even amidst the
death shades of slavery. He thinks of leaving his wife and
children, and the thought is painful, and he determines to
endure its horrors a little longer" ; perhaps his condition may
become more tolerrble, and he does enjoy some happiness
in his family even now, for God has made the world so beauti-
ful that slavery with all its barbarity cannot make everything
in it desolate;; and after . the toils of the day are
over he goes to his little cabin, and here he can
hold his children on his knee and hear the subdued
voice of his wife, although he cannot see her countenance,
for his master will not allow him to have a light in his
cabin ; and when he lies down on his straw he can fold those
he loves best to his desolate bosom, and in spite of slavery he is
almost happy.—( Hear, hear.) There are some lineaments of
Divinity in the human soul which slavery cannot wholly efface ;
-it blots out nearly all that's dear to man, but it cannot wholly
quench the light that Heaven pours into the human bosom.
But abuse and insult rouse up his spirit, and again he meditates
his escape, but then he remembers that all his fellows who have
escaped have been tracked by blood-hounds and brought back to
a more cruel bondage, and he falters. Anew injury arouses him,
he will fly, but then he thinks of the long and toilsome journey,
and the awful probability that he will be taken by the pursuer,
and malignity will forge for him new chains ; and again he he-
sitates, injury increases, and now the day of toleration is over,
the lion is aroused, he has shaken himself and will sleep no more.
Now hishumanity, which has slept in deep silence under the
pressure of tyranny, breaks forth and asserts her everlasting
rights. The tie which binds him to his wife and children is
strong, but (and it maybe heresy in philosophy, but it is true in
fact) there is a tie which is stronger still, it is that which binds
his heart to freedom. Ah ! you may add insult to injury, and
wrong to oppression, but you cannot quench the love of liberty
in the human soul, and the poor captive, unable to lull to rest
the heart that is panting to be free is goaded on to a decision.
Night comes, and he goes to the straw where his babes are re-
posing in the deep quiet slumber of infancy, and bends over
them to take the parting kiss. He then takes into his hand a
.. . ..... .

little supply of food which his wife has been long saving from
her own scanty allowance for her husband (for oh ! what will
not woman do for those she loves), and then he strains her to
his bosom, he turns to take one final look at his babes and he
hesitates, but only for a moment, he embraces his wife for the
last time and leaves her for ever. He crosses the threshold of his
cabin and gathers his robe around him, and plunges off into the
forest, fear gives him wings, and before dawn he has left many a
weary mile behind him, when the first grey lines of mornin„,D.
fret the east he crawls into a hollow tree, bursaves his food till
he wants it more, and he lies down to sleep, but he can only close his
eyes, he cannot sleep, for every falling leaf makes his heart beat

quick ; at length, as the sun goes down he begins his nocturnal pit.
grimage again, but in crossing the mountain he hears behind him—
" The deep-mouthed blood hounds heavy bay
Resounding up the rocky way"
and he is—No, he shan't be taken. The pursuers, thinking they are
on the wrong tack, call off :heir dogs. Heflies on over snow-clad
mountains and across deep rivers, through that vast territory which
he must cross before he reaches the British empire. He dares not
reveal himself until he sees a man with a broad.brimmed hat, he
knows it will protect him. The man of God takes him into his dwel-
ling, feeds, clothes, and comforts him, and sends him on to an aboli-
tionist (for we have chains of posts all through the free States.) He
He stops a day or two at Oberlin, that friendly light-house which
guards the entrance to the harbour of British freedom. At Oberlin
he learns what it is to he treated like a man. But he wants to reach

British soil, he crosses Lake Erie, and the moment he steps on this
ground he is adopted by your Government, and receives a royal
charter of libel ty from your beloved Queen. A h Sir, I wish she
could be our Queen too, long enough to make our subjects free.

Now, if you will listen to me three minutes longer, to reward you
for the patient manner you havelistened to me, I will tell you the
best story you ever heard in your life :—" In Georgia, about three
years ago, there lived a man, black but noble, a giant in strength,
and in form an Apollo Belvidere, about :35 years of age, a slave,
with a wife and four children also slaves. The love of liberty
burned irrepressibly in his bosom, and he determined to escape, and
free his wife and children, at every hazard. He had heard of Ca-
nada as a place where the laws made every man free, and protected
him in his freedom. But of its situation, or the road thither, or the
geography of the intermediate country, ke knew mining. A Quaker
who resided near him, being privy to his design, resolved to aid him
in its accomplishment ; and accoringly carried the slave and his
family fifty miles in a waggon by night. In the day time they
lay concealed in the woods; and on the second night the same
man carried them fifty miles further. At the end of the second
night he told the black man that he could do no more for him, hav-
ing already endangered both his life and property. Ile told the
slave that he must not travel on the high way nor attempt to cross
a ferry, but, taking him by the hand, he committed him to God and
the North Star. This star he was to take as his guide, and it would
lead him at length to the land of British freedom. The poor slave
bade adieu to his benefactor, and after skulking in the day and tra-
velling by night, lie at length came to an unexpected obstacle. It
was a broad river (the Savannah), of the existence of which he had
not the least knowledge. But as nothing remained but to cross it,
he tied his two children on his back, arid between swimming where
it was deep anti wading where it was shallow, his two elder sons
swimming by his side, he at length made out to reach the opposite
bank ; then returning, he brought over his wife in the same man.
ner. In this way he passed undiscovered through the States of
South and ,North Carolina and Virginia, crossed Pennsylvania
without even
.knowing that it was the land of the Quakers; and
finally, after six weeks of toil and hardship, he reached Bunt°.
. Here be placed his wife and children in the custody of a tribe of
Indians in the neighbourhood, for the poor man will always be the
poor man's friend, and the oppressed will stand by the oppressed.
The man proceeded through the town, and as he was passing
through the streets he attracted the notice of a coloured barber, also
a man of great bodily power. The battier stepped up to him, put
his hand on his shoulder, and says, " I know you are a runaway
slave, but never fear, lam your friend." The man confessed he
was from Georgia, when the barber said, " Your master inquired
about you to day, in my shop, but do not fear; I have a friend who
keeps a livery stable, and will give us a carriage as
soon a:7, night comes to carry your family beyond the reach of a
master." As the ferry boat does not run across the Niagara river
in the night, by day break they were at the ferry.house, and rallied
the ferryman to carry them to the Canada shore. They hastened to
the boat, and just as they were about to let go, the master was seen,
on his foaming horse, with pistol in hand, calling to the ferryman to
stop and set those people ashore, or he would blow his brains out.
The stout barber, quick as thought, said to the ferryman, If you
don't put off this instant, I'll be the death of you.' The ferryman,
thus threatened on both sides, lifted up his hands and cried, ' The
Lord have m rcy on me! It seems I am to be killed anyhow. But if I
do die, I will die doing right, and cut the rope.--(Tremendous
cheering.) The powerful current of the Niagara swept the boat ra-
Pithy into deep water, beyond the reach, f tyranny. The workmen
at work on the steamboat Henry Clay, near by, almost involun.
tarily gave three cheers for liberty. As the boat darted into the
deep and rapid stream, the people on the Canada side, who had seen
the occurrence, cheered her course, and in a few moments the broad
current was passed, and the man, with his wife and children, were
all safe on British soil,' protected by British laws." The Rev.
Gentleman resumed his seat amidst loud and general cheering.
Mr. H. It. Moon; of Dublin, then moved the following resolu-
tions, of which, after a long and, desultory discussion, the censi.
deration was referred to a select committee.

" 1. That the practice of excluding people of colour from places
of worship, or allotting them separate seats therein, tends to per.
petuate the unchristian and unfounded prejudices against the
coloured people.
_ _

" 2. That any distinction in the treatment,. INlg,ther in schools,
colleges, the House of God, or in any tittle; . s'espect, on account cif
colour, is opposed to the spiiit of Christianity,
" 3. That 4,olitionists, and all who assume the name of friends
of a s-zoloured man, act inconsistently with their professions unless
they use all their influence to put an end to such unchristian
practices.

" 4. That this Convontion molt earnest/y entreats all Christian
professors, all true AboAktlo.pists, immediately to give Up .111 those
tPlrighteokl,B, distinctions which have their origin in the prejudice
against c°1"Ir; and that, in their social intercourse as citizens
And as Christians, they treat a coloured man as an equal and a
brother.