ENTERING CANADA. 



175 



to purchase the slaves, and send them out of the country ; but 

 the difficulties attending the plan were exposed by other 

 speakers. Messrs. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and A. Powell 

 subsequently held an Anti-slavery convention, where he felt 

 more in sympathy ; and he conversed with " a station-master 

 of the underground railway," i.e., one of those who made it a 

 business to forward fugitive slaves to a place of safety. Busi- 

 ness had been very brisk of late ! 



On February 2, 1859, he took the train to Montreal, where 

 he had agreed to lecture. On entering Canada, " one's heart 

 seemed to beat with home feelings, particularly when, after 

 riding a mile, I felt that the slave-catcher had lost his power, 

 and the poor fugitive was free. ... I have felt in the country 

 of the alien and the despot all the time I have been in the 

 States." * It might have been expected from his habit of 

 treating the poor as respectfully as the rich, that he would have 

 sympathized with republican manners ; but he felt most keenly 

 that slavery gave the lie to professions of equality, and his 

 intense horror of this crime made him a severe critic of those 

 who countenanced it. The self-regard and self-assertion, which 

 he noticed, offended both his taste and his principles : and he 

 satirically wrote of the " S. P.," which stood for Sovereign 

 People, or Sovereign Person, as the case might be. 



He was much impressed with his winter journey — "the 

 wooded ravines, down which frozen streams had tried to dash : 

 it was like the Arabian Nights — everything suddenly turned to 

 stone : the forests in ruins — the clearings, where rows of snow 

 hillocks testified to the stumps below ; or else ghostly sprawling 

 creatures, which were the stumps torn up by the roots, and 

 turned topsy-turvy." The Britannia Bridge at Montreal was 

 not finished. Instead of a steam-ferry, he entered a sleigh, 

 and, after dashing down a steep descent, crossed the St. 

 Lawrence on a road cleared through the rough ice and deep 

 in snow : an avenue of trees planted all across on each side 



* The editor has to record Philip's opinions, not his own. He has the 

 pleasantest remembrances of most of his tour in the United States ; but at 

 this juncture the cloud of slavery was at its blackest, and cast its shadow 

 on everything. 



