49

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 201

America, not as I left it — a slave, but a freeman, prominent friends of the
cause of emancipation intimated their intention to make me a testimonial
both on grounds of personal regard to me, and also to the cause to which they
were so ardently devoted. How such a project would have succeeded I do not
know, but many reasons led me to prefer that my friends should simply give
me the means of obtaining a printing press and materials, to enable me to
start a paper, advocating the interests of my enslaved and oppressed people.
I told them that perhaps the greatest hindrance to the adoption of abolition
principles by the people of the United States, was the low estimate every-
where in that country placed upon the negro as a man: that because of his
assumed natural inferiority, people reconciled themselves to his enslavement
and oppression, as being inevitable if not desirable. The grand thing to be
done, therefore, was to change this estimation, by disproving his inferiority
and demonstrating his capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery
and prejudice had assigned him. In my judgment a tolerably well conducted
press in the hands of persons of the despised race, would by calling out and
making them acquainted with their own latent powers, by enkindling their
hope of a future, and developing their moral force, prove a most powerful
means of removing prejudice and awakening an interest in them. At that time
there was not a single newspaper regularly published by the colored people
in the country, though many attempts had been made to establish such, and
had from one cause or another failed. These views I laid before my friends.
The result was, that nearly two thousand five hundred dollars were speedily
raised towards my establishing such a paper as I had indicated. For this
prompt and generous assistance, rendered upon my bare suggestion, without
any personal effort on my part. I shall never cease to feel deeply grateful,
and the thought of fulfilling the expectations of the dear friends who had
given me this evidence of their confidence, was an abiding inspiration for
persevering exertion.

Proposing to leave England and turning my face toward America in the
spring of 1847, 1 was painfully reminded of the kind of life which awaited
me on my arrival. For the first time in the many months spent abroad, I was
met with proscription on account of my color. While in London I had purchased
a ticket, and secured a berth, for returning home in the "Cambria" —
the steamer in which I had come from thence — and paid therefor the round
sum of forty pounds, nineteen shillings sterling. This was first cabin fare: but
on going on board I found that the Liverpool agent had ordered my berth to
be given to another, and forbidden my entering the saloon. It was rather hard
after having enjoyed for so long a time equal social privileges, after dining