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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 307

Chestnut street, an incident occurred which excited some interest in the
crowd, and was noticed by the press at the time, and may perhaps be prop-
erly related here as a part of the story of my eventful life. It was my meeting
Mrs. Amanda Sears, the daughter of my old mistress, Miss Lucretia Auld,
the same Lucretia to whom I was indebted for so many acts of kindness
when under the rough treatment of Aunt Katy, at the "old plantation home"
of Col. Edward Lloyd. Mrs. Sears now resided in Baltimore, and as I saw her
on the corner of Ninth and Chestnut streets, I hastily ran to her, and expressed
my surprise and joy at meeting her. "But what brought you to Philadelphia
at this time?" I asked. She replied, with animated voice and countenance, "I
heard you were to be here, and I came to see you walk in this procession."
The dear lady, with her two children, had been following us for hours. Here
was the daughter of the owner of a slave, following with enthusiasm that
slave as a free man, and listening with joy to the plaudits he received as he
marched along through the crowded streets of the great city. And here I may
relate another circumstance which should have found place earlier in this
story, which will further explain the feeling subsisting between Mrs. Sears
and myself.

Seven years prior to our meeting, as just described. I delivered a lecture
in National Hall, Philadelphia, and at its close a gentleman approached me
and said, "Mr. Douglass. do you know that your once mistress has been listening
to you to-night?" I replied that I did not, nor was I inclined to believe
it. The fact was, that I had four or five times before had a similar statement
made to me by different individuals in different states, and this made me
skeptical in this instance. The next morning, however, I received a note from
a Mr. Wm. Needles, very elegantly written, which stated that she who was
Amanda Auld, daughter of Thomas and Lucretia Auld, and granddaughter to
my old master, Capt. Aaron Anthony, was now married to Mr. John L. Sears,
a coal merchant in West Philadelphia. The street and number of Mr. Sears's
office was given, so that I might, by seeing him, assure myself of the facts
in the case, and perhaps learn something of the relatives whom I left in slavery.
This note, with the intimation given me the night before, convinced me
there was something in it, and I resolved to know the truth. I had now been
out of slavery twenty years, and no word had come to me from my sisters,
or my brother Perry, or my grandmother. My separation had been as complete
as if I had been an inhabitant of another planet. A law of Maryland at
that time visited with heavy line and imprisonment any colored person who
should come into the State; so I could not go to them any more than they
could come to me.