When the Fourth of July came round again, the temperance men resolved on having another demonstration, and as before, I was requested to supply the dinner, which I did, after the same manner as the year previous.

Having been thrown out of business by the fire, I began to examine my pecuniary matters, and found that I was some three or four hundred dollars in debt, which I had no means of paying.  True, I had met with a great misfortune, but I felt that to be an honest man I must meet all obligations, whether legally bound to do so or not; yet it was beyond my power at that time, and I finally concluded to leave the city, and try to better my condition by some other business, or at least to clear myself from debt.

CHAPTER XXXV.

BISHOP BROWN—­DEATH OF MY DAUGHTER.

I removed with my family to the village of Canandaigua, where I commenced teaching a school for colored children, assisted by my daughter.  The school was sustained partly by the liberality of the citizens of the village, and partly by donations from abroad.  It was continued two years, and the children made rapid progress while they were under our tuition.

Soon after I left Rochester, I visited New York city, and while there, I joined “The African Methodist Episcopal Conference.”  Bishop Brown, of Philadelphia, presided over the deliberations of that body, and appeared to be a man of deep piety, as well as apt in business, and was a native of one of the Carolinas.  I found a pleasing acquaintance also, with Bishop Walters of Baltimore, Md.  He was small in stature; but a powerful speaker, and discharged every duty with “an eye single to the glory of God.”  He has now gone to give an account of his stewardship, and I pray that “his mantle may fall” upon one as capable of leading our people as he.  The conference consisted of some sixty or seventy ministers of the gospel, with these two Bishops at their head.  The conference continued its session ten days.  When it was closed, Bishop Brown, with several others, started on a visit to the West.  They called at Rochester, and then passed over to Canada, where a conference was to be holden.  We arrived, after a pleasant journey, at Hamilton, where the English government have a regiment of black soldiers stationed.  It was common, in passing through the streets of Hamilton, to meet every few rods, a colored man in uniform, with a sword at his side, marching about in all the military pomp allowed only to white men in this free republic.

All being in readiness, Bishop Brown opened the conference under the authority of Her Britannic Majesty, with great solemnity, which seemed to be felt by the whole assembly.  This meeting appeared to me far more interesting than the one we had attended in New York city.  The colored people were much more numerous in Hamilton, and in far better circumstances than in New York.  It is a hard case to be poor in any