The reader is, therefore,
assured, with all due promptitude, that his attention is not
invited to a work of ART, but to a work of FACTS--Facts, terrible
and almost incredible, it may be yet FACTS, nevertheless.
I am authorized to say that there is not a fictitious name nor
place in the whole volume; but that names and places are
literally given, and that every transaction therein described
actually transpired.
Perhaps the best Preface to this volume is furnished in the
following letter of Mr. Douglass, written in answer to my urgent
solicitation for such a work:
ROCHESTER, N. Y. _July_ 2, 1855.
DEAR FRIEND: I have long entertained, as you very well know, a
somewhat positive repugnance to writing or speaking anything for
the public, which could, with any degree of plausibilty, make me
liable to the imputation of seeking personal notoriety, for its
own sake. Entertaining that feeling very sincerely, and
permitting its control, perhaps, quite unreasonably, I have often
<2>refused to narrate my personal experience in public anti-
slavery meetings, and in sympathizing circles, when urged to do
so by friends, with whose views and wishes, ordinarily, it were a
pleasure to comply.
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