HENRY RICHARDSON--
FREE PAPERS--ABOLITIONISTS DISPLEASED WITH THE RANSOM--HOW MY
ENERGIES WERE DIRECTED--RECEPTION SPEECH IN LONDON--CHARACTER OF
THE SPEECH DEFENDED--CIRCUMSTANCES EXPLAINED--CAUSES CONTRIBUTING
TO THE SUCCESS OF MY MISSION--FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND--
TESTIMONIAL.
The allotments of Providence, when coupled with trouble and
anxiety, often conceal from finite vision the wisdom and goodness
in which they are sent; and, frequently, what seemed a harsh and
invidious dispensation, is converted by after experience into a
happy and beneficial arrangement. Thus, the painful liability to
be returned again to slavery, which haunted me by day, and
troubled my dreams by night, proved to be a necessary step in the
path of knowledge and usefulness. The writing of my pamphlet, in
the spring of 1845, endangered my liberty, and led me to seek a
refuge from republican slavery in monarchical England. A rude,
uncultivated fugitive slave was driven, by stern necessity, to
that country to which young American gentlemen go to increase
their stock of knowledge, to seek pleasure, to have their rough,
democratic manners softened by contact with English aristocratic
refinement.
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