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252 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

captain to keep her in manageable condition; but after battling with the
waves on an angry ocean during fourteen long days, I gratefully found
myself upon the soil of Great Britain, beyond the reach of Buchanan's power
and Virginia's prisons. On reaching Liverpool, I learned that England was
nearly as much alive to what had happened at Harper's Ferry as the United
States, and I was immediately called upon in different parts of the country to
speak on the subject of slavery, and especially to give some account of the
men who had thus flung away their lives in a desperate attempt to free the
slaves. My own relation to the affair was a subject of much interest, as was
the fact of my presence there being in some sense to elude the demands of
Governor Wise, who having learned that I was not in Michigan, but was on
a British steamer bound for England, publicly declared that "could he overtake
that vessel, he would take me from her deck at any cost."

While in England, and wishing to visit France. I wrote to Mr. George M.
Dallas, the American minister at the British court, to obtain a passport. The
attempt upon the life of Napoleon III about that time, and the suspicion that
the conspiracy against him had been hatched in England, made the French
government very strict in the enforcement of its passport system. I might
possibly have been permitted to visit that country without a certificate of my
citizenship, but wishing to leave nothing to chance, I applied to the only
competent authority; but true to the traditions of the Democratic party — true
to the slaveholding policy of his country — true to the decision of the United
States supreme court, and true, perhaps, to the petty meanness of his own
nature, Mr. George M. Dallas, the Democratic American minister, refused to
grant me a passport, on the ground that I was not a citizen of the United
States. I did not beg or remonstrate with this dignitary further, but simply
addressed a note to the French minister at London, asking for a permit to
visit France, and that paper came without delay. I mention this, not to belittle
the civilization of my native country, but as a part of the story of my life. I
could have borne this denial with more serenity, could I have foreseen what
has since happened, but, under the circumstances, it was a galling
disappointment.

I had at this time been about six months out of the United States. My
time had been chiefly occupied in speaking on slavery, and other subjects, in
different parts of England and Scotland, meeting and enjoying the while the
society of many of the kind friends whose acquaintance I had made during
my visit to those countries fourteen years before. Much of the excitement
caused by the Harper's Ferry insurrection had subsided, both at home and
abroad, and I should have now gratified a long-cherished desire to visit