Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/311



"when I left the shore,

The distant shore, which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more,

To quit another spot on earth."

a change five years make in one's history! The summer of 1849 found me a stranger in a foreign land, unknown to its inhabitants; its laws, customs and history, were a blank to me. But how different the summer of 1854! During my sojourn I had travelled over nearly every railroad in England and Scotland, and had visited Ireland and Wales, besides spending some weeks on the continent. I had become so well acquainted with the British people and their history, that I had begun to fancy myself an Englishman by habit, if not by birth. The treatment which I had experienced at their hands had endeared them to me, and caused me to feel myself at home wherever I went. Under such circumstances, it was not strange that I commenced with palpitating heart the preparation to return to my native land. Native land! How harshly that word sounds to my ears! True, America was the land of my birth; my