the Pearl, and learning from him that business was dull with him, I proposed the enterprise to him, offering him one hundred dollars for the charter of his vessel to Washington and back to Frenchtown where, according to the arrangement with the friends of the passengers, they were to be met and carried to Philadelphia.  This was considerably more than the vessel could earn in any ordinary trip of the like duration, and Sayres closed with the offer.  He fully understood the nature of the enterprise.  By our bargain, I was to have, as supercargo, the control of the vessel so far as related to her freight, and was to bring away from Washington such passengers as I chose to receive on board; but the control of the vessel in other respects remained with him.  Captain Sayres engaged in this enterprise merely as a matter of business.  I, too, was to be paid for my time and trouble,—­an offer which the low state of my pecuniary affairs, and the necessity of supporting my family, did not allow me to decline.  But this was not, by any means, my sole or principal motive.  I undertook it out of sympathy for the enslaved, and from my desire to do something to further the cause of universal liberty.  Such being the different ground upon which Sayres and myself stood, I did not think it necessary or expedient to communicate to him the names of the persons with whom the expedition had originated; and, at my suggestion, those persons abstained from any direct communication with him, either at Philadelphia or Washington.  Sayres had, as cook and sailor, on board the Pearl, a young man named Chester English.  He was married, and had a child or two, but was himself as inexperienced as a child, having never been more than thirty miles from the place where he was born.  I remonstrated with Sayres against taking this young man with us.  But English, pleased with the idea of seeing Washington, desired to go; and Sayres, who had engaged him for the season, did not like to part with him.  He went with us, but was kept in total ignorance of the real object of the voyage.  He had the idea that we were going to Washington for a load of ship-timber.

We proceeded down the Delaware, and by the canal into the Chesapeake, making for the mouth of the Potomac.  As we ascended that river we stopped at a place called Machudock, where I purchased, by way of cargo and cover to the voyage, twenty cords of wood; and with that freight on board we proceeded to Washington, where we arrived on the evening of Thursday, the 13th of April, 1848.

As it happened, we found that city in a great state of excitement on the subject of emancipation, liberty and the rights of man.  A grand torch-light procession was on foot, in honor of the new French revolution, the expulsion of Louis-Philippe, and the establishment of a republic in France.  Bonfires were blazing in the public squares, and a great out-door meeting was being held in front of the Union newspaper office, at which very enthusiastic and exciting speeches