civilized, and Christian nations of the earth.

W.F.




PREFACE.


While I feel conscious that most of the contents of these Letters will
be interesting chiefly to American readers, yet I may indulge the hope,
that the fact of their being the first production of a Fugitive Slave,
as a history of travels, may carry with them novelty enough to secure
for them, to some extent, the attention of the reading public of Great
Britain. Most of the letters were written for the private perusal of a
few personal friends in America; some were contributed to "Frederick
Douglass's paper," a journal published in the United States. In a
printed circular sent some weeks since to some of my friends, asking
subscriptions to this volume, I stated the reasons for its publication:
these need not be repeated here. To those who so promptly and kindly
responded to that appeal, I tender my most sincere thanks. It is with no
little diffidence that I lay these letters before the public; for I am
not blind to the fact, that they must contain many errors; and to those
who shall find fault with them on that account, it may not be too much
for me to ask them kindly to remember, that the author was a slave in
one of the Southern States of America, until he had attained the age of
twenty years; and that the education he has acquired, was by his own
exertions, he never having had a day's schooling in his life.