The opinion, or rather the belief, has prevailed in America that Fred. Douglass was the son of a white father and colored mother, and that white father has been supposed to have been his owner. But in the history of his own life and times, published a few years ago, Douglass positively affirms that both his parents were colored, and for my own part I believe that to be the truth. As men like Fred. Douglass are very few and far between, the wish among many of the anti-slavery school, at least, seems to have been father to the thought that so clever a man could never have been the offspring of colored parents, but that his father, at least, must have been white. Not so, by any means! Fred. himself makes it quite plain that his father and mother were both colored, and he tells us all about it in his usual modest way. Fred. Douglass was born in the region called Tuckahoe Neck, in Talbot county, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in the year 1817. There is something unusually sad and plaintive about the way in which the poor child was separated from his own father and mother, and how he came up on the rough side of the mountain of slavery. The poor lad was subjected not only to the purest barbarities, but had to undergo treatment that may be called sheer cowardice on the part of his tormentors. Well might the Prophet exclaim, "How long, O Lord, how long?" Whilst he was a boy, growing up at Baltimore, his mistress kindly taught him his letters, and went some way in giving him further instructions, till at last his master advised her to stop teaching him, as such things and slavery did not work well together. No, indeed! They did not work well together, especially in the heart and soul of a boy like Fred., who already began to look into the workings of the curse of slavery. To stop Fred. from learning was now impossible. One might as well dam up a mountain rill with one’s hands—it would simply flow over the top of them, or round about them. Nature will have her way, and the great Creator had implanted the germ of liberty in the boy’s heart, whose growth was not to be kept down. After many ups and downs on the Eastern and Western Shores of Maryland, when our hero had arrived at about the age of twenty-one, in the year 1838, he resolved to make a bold stroke for liberty; and accordingly, being dressed up like a sailor, he took the train at Baltimore for Philadelphia, luckily escaping detection, and having successfully run the gauntlet by the way, he landed upon the platform of the Quaker City all right. But he did not consider himself safe even here; so he left Philadelphia, still dressed in his sailor’s suit, and came on to the city of New York.