Page:Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892).djvu/402

394 to the petty meanness of his own nature, Mr. George M. Dallas, the Democratic American minister, refused to grant me a passport, on the ground that I was not a citizen of the United States. I did not beg or remonstrate with this dignitary further, but simply addressed a note to the French minister in London asking for a permit to visit France, and that paper came without delay. I mention this not to belittle the civilization of my native country, but as a part of the story of my life. I could have borne this denial with more serenity could I have foreseen what has since happened, but under the circumstances it was a galling disappointment.

I had at this time been about six months out of the United States. My time had been chiefly occupied in different parts of England and Scotland, in speaking on slavery and other subjects, meeting and enjoying the while the society of many of the kind friends whose acquaintance I had made during my visit, fourteen years before, to those countries. Much of the excitement caused by the Harper's Ferry insurrection had subsided, both at home and abroad, and I should have now gratified a long-cherished desire to visit France, and availed myself for that purpose of the permit so promptly and civilly given by the French minister, had not news reached me from home of the death of my beloved daughter Annie, the light and life of my house. Deeply distressed by this bereavement, and acting upon the impulse of the moment, regardless of the peril, I at once resolved to return home, and took the first outgoing steamer for Portland, Maine. After a rough passage of seventeen days I reached home by way of Canada, and remained in my house nearly a month before the knowledge got abroad that I was again in this country. Great changes had now taken place in the public mind touching the John Brown raid. Virginia had satisfied her thirst for blood. She had