country.  He told me that there had been a great change for the better in the public mind since his residence in this neighborhood.  Abolitionism was once so unpopular, that he has been mobbed four times in his own otherwise quiet village.  On one occasion he was engaged in a public discussion on slavery, and a mob so much disturbed the meeting, by the throwing of shot, and yells the most discordant the human voice could make, that his opponent moved an adjournment, and afterwards accompanied him on his way to his own house, with many other persons, as a body-guard.  They were followed by a large number of other persons, who attempted to throw him down, and were very free in the use of missiles and mud; the mob were so vociferous, that their shoutings were heard two and a half miles distant, many persons leaving their houses to endeavor to ascertain the cause of such an uproar.  On James C. Fuller’s entering his house, the mob surrounded his parlor windows, and these would, most probably, have been smashed in pieces, and the building defaced, had not one of the assailants been seized with a fit, and in that state conveyed into James C. Fuller’s parlor, where he lay insensible for three quarters of an hour.  This sudden seizure diverted the attention of the mob from my friend and his property to their own companion.

James C. Fuller informed me that mobs in America are generally, if not always, instigated by “persons of property and standing;” and the most blameable, in his case, were not those who yelled, et cet., et cet., but others who prompted the outrage.  Happily this state of things is now altered:  as much order and decorum, with fixed attention, is now witnessed at an abolition lecture as at any other lecture; and a colored man can now collect a larger meeting in Skaneateles than a white man, and the behavior of the audience is attentive, kind, and respectful.  My friend, John Candler, who was here a fortnight before me, collected a large assembly to hear his account of the effects of emancipation in our West India Islands, and many expressed themselves much gratified with his narrative.

Being anxious to proceed to Peterboro’, to visit Gerrit Smith, I accepted James C. Fuller’s kind offer to take me in his carriage.  The distance is nearly fifty miles, and the roads were, in some parts, very rough; but they intersect a fine country.  Much wheat is grown in many places, and here the crop appeared generally good.

Having started rather late in the afternoon, we were benighted before we reached Manlius Square, where we lodged.  Though my kind friend would not permit me to pay my share of the bill, yet, to gratify my curiosity, he communicated the particulars of the charge, as follows:  Half a bushel of oats for the horses, 25 cents; supper for two persons, 25 cents; two beds, 25 cents; hay and stable-room for the two horses, 25 cents; total, one dollar, or about 4s. 2d. sterling.