Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have MetBrown, William Wells
History
Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met
Brown, William Wells
Great Britain -- Description and travel
On Monday evening, Jan. 6, a public meeting was held in the City Hall,
to extend a welcome to the American fugitive slaves. The hall, one of
the largest in the kingdom, was filled at an early hour. At the
appointed time, Alex. Hastie, Esq., M.P., entered the great room,
followed by the fugitives and most of the leading abolitionists, amid
rapturous applause. With a Member of Parliament in the chair, and
almost any number of clergymen on the platform, the meeting had an
influential appearance. From report, I had imbibed the opinion that the
Scotch were not easily moved, but if I may judge from the enthusiasm
which characterised the City Hall demonstration, I should place them but
little behind the English. After an excellent speech from the Chairman,
and spirited addresses from several clergymen, William Craft was
introduced to the meeting, and gave an account of the escape of himself
and wife from slavery, and their subsequent flight from Boston. Any
description of mine would give but a poor idea of the intense feeling
that pervaded the meeting. I think all who were there, left the hall
after hearing that noble fugitive, with a greater abhorrence of American
slavery than they previously entertained.
LETTER XIV.
_Stirling--Dundee--Dr. Dick--Geo. Gilfillan--Dr. Dick at home._
PERTH, SCOTLAND, _Jan. 31, 1851_.
I am glad once more to breathe an atmosphere uncontaminated by the fumes
and smoke of a city with its population of three hundred thousand
inhabitants. In company with our friends Wm. and Ellen Craft, I left
Glasgow on the afternoon of the 23d inst., for Dundee, a beautiful town
situated on the banks of the river Tay. One like myself, who has spent
the best part of an eventful life in cities, and who prefers, as I do, a
country to a town life, feels a greater degree of freedom when
surrounded by forest trees, or country dwellings, and looking upon a
clear sky, than when walking through the thronged thoroughfares of a
city, with its dense population, meeting every moment a new or strange
face which one has never seen before, and never expects to see again.
Although I had met with one of the warmest public receptions with which
I have been greeted since my arrival in the country, and had had an
opportunity of shaking hands with many noble friends of the slave, whose
names I had often seen in print, yet I felt glad to see the tall
chimneys and smoke of Glasgow receding in the distance, as our 'iron
horse' was taking us with almost lightning speed from the commercial
capital of Scotland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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