Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met
W. Wells Brown.
A narrative of the life of the author of the present work has been most extensively circulated in England and America. The present memoir will, therefore, simply comprise a brief sketch of the most interesting portion of Mr. Brown's history while in America, together with a short account of his subsequent cisatlantic career. The publication of his adventures as a slave, and as a fugitive from slavery in his native land, has been most valuable in sustaining a sound anti-slavery spirit in Great Britain. His honourable reception in Europe may be equally serviceable in America, as another added to the many practical protests previously entered from this side of the Atlantic, against the absolute bondage of three millions and a quarter of the human race, and the semi-slavery involved in the social and political proscription of 600,000 free coloured people in that country.
William Wells Brown was born at Lexington, in the state of Kentucky, as nearly as he can tell in the autumn of 1814. In the Southern States of America, the pedigree and age of a horse or a
dog are carefully preserved, but no record is kept of the birth of a slave. All that Mr. Brown knows upon the subject is traditionally, that he was born about corn-cutting time of that year. His mother was a slave named Elizabeth, the property of Dr. Young, a physician. His father was George Higgins, a relative of his master.
The name given to our author at his birth, was William —no second or surname being permitted to a slave. While William was an infant, Dr. Young removed to Missouri, where, in addition to his profession as a physician, he carried on the—to European notions—incongruous avocations of miller, merchant, and farmer. Here William was employed as a house servant, while his mother was engaged as a field hand. One of his first bitter experiences of the cruelties of slavery, was his witnessing the infliction of ten lashes upon the bare back of his mother, for being a few minutes behind her time at the field—a punishment inflicted with one of those peculiar whips in the construction of which, so as to produce the greatest amount of torture, those whom Lord Carlisle has designated the chivalry of the South find scope for their ingenuity.
William Wells Brown
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Departure from Boston—the Passengers—Halifax—the Passage—First Sight of Land—Liverpool.
Trip to Ireland—Dublin—Her Majesty's Visit—Illumination of the City—the Birth-Place of Thomas Moore—a Reception.
Departure from Ireland—London—Trip to Paris—Paris—The Peace Congress: first day—Church of the Madeleine—Column Vendome—the French.
Versailles—The Palace—Second Session of the Congress—Mr. Cobden—Henry Vincent—M. Girardin—Abbe Duguerry—Victor Hugo: his Speech.
The Tuileries—Place de la Concorde—The Egyptian Obelisk—Palais Royal—Residence of Robespierre—A Visit to the Room in which Charlotte Corday killed Marat—Church de Notre Dame—Palais de Justice—Hotel des Invalids—National Assembly—The Elysee.
Departure from Paris—Boulogne—Folkstone—London—Geo. Thompson, Esq., M.P.—Hartwell House—Dr. Lee—Cottage of the Peasant—Windsor Castle—Residence of Wm. Penn—England's First Welcome—Heath Lodge—The Bank of England
The British Museum—A Portrait—Night Reading—A Dark Day—A Fugitive Slave on the Streets of London,—A Friend in the time of need.
LETTER X.
The Whittington Club—Louis Blanc—Street Amusements—Tower of London—Westminster Abbey—National Gallery—Dante—Sir Joshua Reynolds.
York Minster—The Great Organ—Newcastle-on-Tyne—The Labouring Classes—The American Slave—Sheffield—James Montgomery.
Kirkstall Abbey—Mary the Maid of the Inn—Newstead Abbey: Residence of Lord Byron—Parish Church of Hucknall—Burial Place of Lord Byron—Bristol: "Cook's Folly"—Chepstow Castle and Abbey—Tintern Abbey—Redcliffe Church.
Aberdeen—Passage by Steamer—Edinburgh—Visit to the College—William and Ellen Craft.
FOOTNOTES:
Edinburgh—The Royal Institute—Scott's Monument—John Knox's Pulpit—Temperance Meeting—Glasgow—Great Meeting in the City Hall.
Stirling—Dundee—Dr. Dick—Geo. Gilfillan—Dr. Dick at home.
Melrose Abbey—Abbotsford—Dryburgh Abbey—The Grave of Sir Walter Scott—Hawick—Gretna Green—Visit to the Lakes.
Miss Martineau—"The Knoll"—"Ridal Mount"—"The Dove's Nest"—Grave of William Wordsworth, Esq.—The English Peasant.
A Day in the Crystal Palace.
The London Peace Congress—Meeting of Fugitive Slaves—Temperance Demonstration—The Great Exhibition: last visit.
Oxford—Martyrs' Monument—Cost of the Burning of the Martyrs—The Colleges—Dr. Pusey—Energy, the Secret of Success.
Fugitive Slaves in England.
A Chapter on American Slavery.
A Narrative of American Slavery.
FINIS.