A public meeting, attended by between 3000 and 4000 persons, was convened by Mr. Brown, on the 6th of January, 1851, in the City Hall, Glasgow, presided over by Mr. Hastie, one of the representatives of that city, at which meeting a resolution was unanimously passed approving of Mr. Brown’s scheme, which scheme, however, never received that amount of support which would have enabled him to bring it into practice; and the plan at present only remains as an evidence of its author’s ingenuity and desire for the elevation of his depressed race.  Mr. Brown subsequently made, through the columns of the Times newspaper, a proposition for the emigration of American fugitive slaves, under fair and honourable terms, to the West Indies, where there is a great lack of that tillage labour which they are so capable of undertaking.  This proposition has hitherto met with no better fate than its predecessor.

Mr. Brown’s literary abilities may be partly judged of from the following pages.  The amount of knowledge and education he has acquired under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty, is a striking proof of what can be done by combined genius and industry.  His proficiency as a linguist, without the aid of a master, is considerable.  His present work is a valuable addition to the stock of English literature.  The honour which has hitherto been paid, and which, so long as he resides upon British soil, will no doubt continue to be paid to his character and talents, must have its influence in abating the senseless prejudice of colour in America, and hastening the time when the object of his mission, the abolition of the slavery of his native country, shall be accomplished, and that young Republic renouncing with penitence its national sin, shall take its proper place amongst the most free, civilized, and Christian nations of the earth.

W.F.

PREFACE.

While I feel conscious that most of the contents of these Letters will be interesting chiefly to American readers, yet I may indulge the hope, that the fact of their being the first production of a Fugitive Slave, as a history of travels, may carry with them novelty enough to secure for them, to some extent, the attention of the reading public of Great Britain.  Most of the letters were written for the private perusal of a few personal friends in America; some were contributed to “Frederick Douglass’s paper,” a journal published in the United States.  In a printed circular sent some weeks since to some of my friends, asking subscriptions to this volume, I stated the reasons for its publication:  these need not be repeated here.  To those who so promptly and kindly responded to that appeal, I tender my most sincere thanks.  It is with no little diffidence that I lay these letters before the public; for I am not blind to the fact, that they must contain many errors; and to those who shall find fault with them on that account, it may not be too much for me to ask them kindly to remember, that the author was a slave in one of the Southern States of America, until he had attained the age of twenty years; and that the education he has acquired, was by his own exertions, he never having had a day’s schooling in his life.