40

192 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

England. On approaching the door, I found several of our American passen-
gers who came out with us in the 'Cambria,' waiting for admission, as but
one party was allowed in the house at a time. We all had to wait till the com-
pany within came out, and of all the faces expressive of chagrin, those of the
Americans were preeminent. They looked as sour as vinegar, and as bitter as
gall, when they found I was to be admitted on equal terms with themselves.
When the door was opened, I walked in on a footing with my white fellow-
citizens, and, from all I could see, I had as much attention paid me by the
servants who showed us through the house, as any with a paler skin. As I
walked through the building, the statuary did not fall down, the pictures did
not leap from their places, the doors did not refuse to open, and the servants
did not say, 'We don't allow niggers in here.'"

My time and labors while abroad were divided between England,
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Upon this experience alone I might fill a vol-
ume. Amongst the few incidents which space will permit me to mention, and
one which attracted much attention and provoked much discussion in
America, was a brief statement made by me in the World's Temperance
Convention, held in Covent Garden theater, London, August 7, 1846. The
United States was largely represented in this convention by eminent divines,
mostly doctors of divinity. They had come to England for the double purpose
of attending the World's Evangelical Alliance, and the World's Temperance
Convention. In the former these ministers were endeavoring to procure
endorsement for the Christian character of slaveholders; and, naturally
enough, they were adverse to the exposure of slaveholding practices. It was
not pleasant to them to see one of the slaves running at large in England, and
telling the other side of the story. The Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, D. D., of
Brooklyn, N. Y., was especially disturbed at my presence and speech in the
Temperance Convention. I will give here, first, the reverend gentleman's
version of the occasion in a letter from him as it appeared in the New York
Evangelist, the organ of his denomination. After a description of the place
(Covent Garden theater) and the speakers, he says:

"They all advocated the same cause, showed a glorious unity of thought
and feeling, and the effect was constantly raised—the moral scene was
superb and glorious—when Frederick Douglass, the colored abolition agita-
tor and ultraist, came to the platform, and so spake, à la mode, as to ruin the
influence almost of all that preceded! He lugged in anti-slavery, or abolition,
no doubt prompted to it by some of the politic ones, who can use him to do