It was my privilege to see much of Edward S. Abdy, Esq., of England, during his visit to our country, in 1833 and 1834. The first time I met him was at the house of Mr. James Forten, of Philadelphia, in company with two other English gentlemen, who had come to the United States, commissioned by the British Parliament to examine our systems of prison and penitentiary discipline. Mr. Abdy was interested in whatsoever affected the welfare of man. But he was more particularly devoted to the investigation of slavery. He travelled extensively in our Southern States, and contemplated with his own eyes the manifold abominations of our American despotism. He was too much exasperated by our tyranny to be enamoured of our democratic institutions; and on his return to England, he published two very sensible volumes, that were so little complimentary to our nation, that our booksellers thought it not worth their while to republish them.

This warm-hearted philanthropist visited me several times at my home in Connecticut. The last afternoon that he was there, we were sitting together at my study window, when our attention was arrested by a very handsome carriage driving up to the hotel opposite my house. A gentleman and lady occupied the back seat; and on the front were two children tended by a black woman, who wore the turban, that was then more than now, usually worn by slave women.

We hastened over to the hotel, and soon entered into conversation with the slave-holder. He was polite, but somewhat nonchalant, and defiant of our sympathy with his victim. He readily acknowledged, as slave-holders of that day generally did, that, abstractly considered, the enslavement of fellow men was a great wrong; but then he contended that it had become a necessary evil, necessary to the enslaved, no less than to the enslavers; the former being unable to do without masters, as much as the latter were to do without servants. And he added, in a very confident tone, “you are at liberty to persuade our servant-woman to remain here, if you can.”

Thus challenged, we of course sought an interview with the slave; and informed her that having been brought by her master into the free States, she was, by the laws of the land, set at liberty. “No, I am not, gentlemen,” was her prompt reply. We adduced cases, and quoted authorities to establish our assertion that she was free. But she significantly shook her head, and still insisted that the examples and the legal decisions did not reach her case. “For,” said she, “I promised mistress that I would go back with her and the children.” Mr. Abdy undertook to argue with her that such a promise was not binding. He had been drilled in the moral philosophy of Dr. Paley, and in that debate seemed to be possessed of its spirit. But he failed to make any visible impression upon the woman. She had bound herself by a promise to her mistress, that she would not leave her; and that promise had fastened upon her conscience an obligation, from which she could not be persuaded, that even her natural right to liberty could exonerate her. Mr. Abdy at last was impatient with her, and said, in his haste, “is it possible that you do not wish to be free?” She replied with solemn earnestness, “was there ever a slave that did not wish to be free? I long for liberty. I will get out of slavery, if I can, the day after I have returned, but go back I must, because I promised that I would.” At this, we desisted from our endeavor to induce her to take the boon that was, apparently to us, within her reach. We could not but feel a profound respect for that moral sensibility which would not allow her to embrace even her freedom, at the expense of violating a promise.

The next morning, at an early hour, the slave-holder with his wife and children drove off, leaving the slave-woman and their heaviest trunk to be brought on after them in the stage-coach. We could not refrain from again trying to persuade her to remain and be free. We told her that her master had given us leave to persuade her if we could. She pointed to the trunk, and to a very valuable gold watch and chain, which her mistress had committed to her care, and insisted that fidelity to a trust was of more consequence to her soul even than the attainment of liberty. Mr. Abdy offered to take the trunk and watch into his charge, follow her master, and deliver them into his hands. But she could not be made to see that in this there would be no violation of her duty. And then her own person, that, too, she had promised should be returned to the home of her master; and much as she longed for liberty, she longed for a clear conscience more.

Mr. Abdy was astonished, delighted at this instance of heroice virtue in a poor, ignorant slave. He packed his trunk, gave me a hearty adieu, and, when the coach drove up, he took his seat on the outside with the trunk and the slave—chattels of a Mississippi slave-holder—that he might study for a few hours more the morality of that strong-hearted woman, who could not be bribed to violate her promise, even by the gift of liberty.

It was the last time I saw Mr. Abdy,—and it was a sight to be remembered,—he an accomplished English gentleman, a Fellow of Oxford or Cambridge University, riding on the driver’s box of a stage-coach, side by side with an American slave-woman, that he might learn more of her history and character.

Yours, respectfully,

Syracuse, Oct. 9, 1852.