At Boston and at New York he was welcomed as heartily as ever. After his first lecture this time at Boston it had been noted that "for once" the great audience, who, it was said, seemed completely under his control, remained to hear the last word; after the last it was agreed that his lectures had been the greatest success of the season. His headquarters had been this time in Boston, and whenever he returned there from his lecturing journeys receptions were given to him, and every one seemed eager to show him some kindness or courtesy. Not the least valued mementoes of this visit were a complete and finely bound edition of Sumner's works, a handsome memorial volume printed in honour of Sumner, and three fine photographs of the dead statesman. All these were brought him at different times by the Hon. Joshua B. Smith, who idolised the great Abolitionist. He brought these tokens of Sumner to my father because, as he once said, "Mr Bradlaugh was the friend of one I loved."
Although he was comparatively little at New York, still while he was there he met amongst others James Paxton, E. C. Stedman, the poet, and Anna E. Dickinson, who greatly charmed him by her apparent sincerity, her eloquence, and her clearness of thought.
My father returned at the end of February, with the satisfaction of knowing that, despite its ominous commencement, his winter's work had been a success in every way. The liabilities incurred by his sudden departure from the United States the year before, and his delayed arrival this year, had been met, and his indebtedness at home had been cleared to the extent of £1000.
He came home by the City of Brooklyn, and met with a very stormy passage. There was a furious gale, the waves sweeping the decks and bursting the doors. The wheel became unmanageable; the wheelmen were flung right and left. "For five hours and twenty minutes," wrote my father a week later, "our engines were stopped; the sea played with our helpless vessel as with a toy, and the whole of those on board stood near death's gates. Captain J. S. Murray behaved in this terrible emergency with a courage and self-possession for which no praise can be too high. The City of Brooklyn, too, proved to be a good sea boat, and the morning light saw us out of danger; but in that twenty-four hours we only made ninety-one miles, and the log recorded a 'violent hurricane with mountainous seas.'"
My father's departure for the United States for his third lecturing tour, in the autumn of 1875, was very different from that of the year before, or even that of 1873. Now, at last, Fortune seemed to smile upon him, and everything was propitious. He set out in gay spirits and high hopes; his successes of the last two winters had assured him a welcome when he reached the States, and there was every prospect that by the time he came home again he would be able to lighten that terrible incubus of debt even more substantially than before.
He sailed in the City of Berlin, then one of the largest and most perfectly fitted Atlantic Liners afloat. He felt quite at home in her, for there were several familiar faces amongst the officers, and the captain was so courteous that the passengers voted him a special vote of thanks. It is rather curious that this resolution should have been signed on behalf of their fellow-passengers by Dr Fessenden, N. Otis, and Mr Bradlaugh, because a little later Dr Otis proved a friend in need to my father. On the voyage all went well, the weather was good, and the Berlin made a record passage of seven days eighteen hours.
After two or three days spent in New York my father went on to Boston, to find that city in the throes of an election for the office of Governor of Massachusetts. He attended a "Republican rally" at the old Faneuil Hall, and as he sat listening to the speeches of Henry Wilson and others, the influence of the room seemed to grow upon him; he remembered that it was there "that Otis pleaded against Lord North and George III.; it was there that the Boston men gathered that very December day on which the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbour; it was there that groans accompanied the reading of the Boston Ports Bill." The meeting had the still further interest to him that it was presided over by R. H. Dana, the man who had been counsel for Anthony Burns.
Another question was also agitating, not merely Boston, but the whole country, and dividing parties into hostile camps, and that was the Currency question; and as upon this subject my father and Wendell Phillips took opposite views, their relations were by no means so friendly as heretofore.
The religious feeling which had been raised against Mr Bradlaugh every time was renewed with special bitterness this winter, and created quite a panic amongst the managers of lecture courses. It is much to their credit that the Rev. Dr Miner and the Rev. Dr Lorrimer had the courage to disregard the outcry, and invited him to lecture to their congregations as before.