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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 321

My selection to visit Santo Domingo with the commission sent thither,
was another point indicating the difference between the OLD TIME and the
NEW. It placed me on the deck of an American man-of-war, manned by one
hundred marines and five hundred men-of-war's-men, under the national
flag, which I could now call mine, in common with other American citizens,
and gave me a place not in the fore-castle, among the hands, nor in the
caboose with the cooks, but in the captain's saloon and in the society of
gentlemen, scientists, and statesmen. It would be a pleasing task to narrate
the varied experiences and the distinguished persons encountered in this
Santo Domingo tour, but the material is too boundless for the limits of these
rages. I can only say, it was highly interesting and instructive. The conversa-
tions at the Captain's table (at which I had the honor of a seat) were usually
led by Messrs. Wade, Howe, and White—the three commissioners; and by
Mr. Hurlbert of the New York World; the last-named gentleman impressed
me as one remarkable for knowledge and refinement, in which he was no
whit behind Messrs. Howe and White. As for Hon. Benj. F. Wade, he was
there, as everywhere, abundant in knowledge and experience, fully able to
take care of himself in the discussion of any subject in which he chose to
take a part. In a circle so brilliant, it is no affectation of modesty to say I was
for the most part a listener and a learner. The commander of our good ship
on this voyage, Capt. Temple, now promoted to the position of Commodore,
was a very imposing man, and deported himself with much dignity towards
us all. For his treatment of me I am especially grateful. A son of the United
States navy as he was—a department of our service considerably distin-
guished for its aristocratic tendencies—I expected to find something a little
forbidding in his manner; but I am bound to say that in this I was agreeably
disappointed. Both the commander and the officers under him bore them-
selves in a friendly manner towards me during all the voyage, and this is
saying a great thing for them, for the spectacle presented by a colored man
seated at the captain's table was not only unusual but had never before
occurred in the history of the United States navy. If during this voyage there
was anything to complain of, it was not in the men in authority, or in the
conduct of the thirty gentlemen who went out as the honored guests of the
expedition, but in the colored waiters. My presence and position seemed to
trouble them for its incomprehensibility; and they did not know exactly how
to deport themselves towards me. Possibly they may have detected in me
something of the same sort in respect of themselves; at any rate we seemed
awkwardly related to each other during several weeks of the voyage. In their
eyes I was Fred. Douglass suddenly, and possibly undeservedly, lifted above