is more profitable to work up a slave on a plantation in a short time, by excessive labour and cheap food, than to obtain a lengthened remuneration by moderate work and humane treatment.  His only protection from such a fate was the anomaly of the ascendancy of the public opinion over the law of the country.  So uncertain, however, was that tenure of liberty, that even before the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, it was deemed expedient to secure the services of Frederick Douglass to the anti-slavery cause by the purchase of his freedom.  The same course might have been taken to secure the labours of Mr. Brown, had he not entertained an unconquerable repugnance to its adoption.  On the 10th of January, 1848, Enoch Price wrote to Mr. Edmund Quincy offering to sell Mr. Brown to himself or friends for 325 dollars.  To this communication the fugitive returned the following pithy and noble reply:—­

“I cannot accept of Mr. Price’s offer to become a purchaser of my body and soul.  God made me as free as he did Enoch Price, and Mr. Price shall never receive a dollar from me or my friends with my consent.”

There were, however, other reasons besides his personal safety which led to Mr. Brown’s visit to Europe.  It was thought desirable always to have in England some talented man of colour who should be a living lie to the doctrine of the inferiority of the African race:  and it was moreover felt that none could so powerfully advocate the cause of “those in bonds” as one who had actually been “bound with them.”  This had been proved in the extraordinary effect produced in Great Britain by Frederick Douglass in 1845 and 1846.  The American Committee in connection with the Peace Congress were also desirous of sending to Europe coloured representatives of their Society, and Mr. Brown was selected for that purpose, and duly accredited by them to the Paris Congress.

On the 18th of July, 1849, a large meeting of the coloured citizens of Boston was held in Washington Hall to bid him farewell.  At that meeting the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:—­

“Resolved,—­That we bid our brother, William Wells Brown, God speed in
      his mission to Europe, and commend him to the hospitality and
      encouragement of all true friends of humanity.

“Resolved,—­That we forward by him our renewed protest against the
      American Colonization Society; and invoke for him a candid hearing
      before the British public, in reply to the efforts put forth there
      by the Rev. Mr. Miller, or any other agent of said Society.”

Two days afterwards he sailed for Europe, encountering on his voyage his last experience of American prejudice against colour.