"There's heaps of Quakers in New York, ain't there, mass'r?"
"No—not many."
"I've always heard there was."
"In Philadelphia there are a good many."
"Oh, yes! in Philadelphia, and in Winchester, and in New Jarsey. I know—ho! ho! I've been in those countries, and I've seen 'em. I wos raised nigh by Winchester, and I've been all about there. Used to iron waggons and shoe horses in that country. Dar's a road from Winchester to Philadelphia—right straight. Quakers all along. Right good people, dem Quakers—ho! ho!—I know."[1]
We slept in well-barred beds, and awoke long after sunrise. As soon as we were stirring, black coffee was sent into us, and at breakfast we had café au lait in immense bowls in the style of the crêmeries of Paris. The woman remarked that our dog had slept in their bed-room. They had taken our saddle-bags and blankets with them for security, and Judy had insisted on following them. "Dishonest black people might come here and get into the room," explained the old man. " Yes; and some of our own people in the house might come to them. Such things have happened here, and you never can trust any of them," said the woman, her own black girl behind her chair.
At Mr. Béguin's (Bacon's) we stopped on a Saturday night: and I was obliged to feed my own horse in the morning, the negroes having all gone off before daylight. The proprietor was a Creole farmer, owning a number of labourers, and living in comfort. The house was of the ordinary
- ↑ Evidently an allusion to the "underground railroad," or smuggling of runaway slaves, which is generally supposed to be managed mainly by Quakers. This shows how knowledge of the abolition agitation must be carried among the slaves to the most remote districts.
