This demonstration was not lost on the gentleman whose dignity I had, an hour before, most seriously offended.Col.Clifford was known to be about the most aristocratic gentleman in Bristol county; and it was evidently thought that I must be somebody, else I should not have been thus noticed, by a person so distinguished.

Sure enough, after Col.

Clifford left me, I found myself surrounded with friends; and among the number, my offended friend stood nearest, and with an apology for his rudeness, which I could not resist, although it was one of the lamest ever offered.

With such facts as these before me--and I have many of them--I am inclined to think that pride and fashion have much to do with{314} the treatment commonly extended to colored people in the United States.
I once heard a very plain man say (and he was cross-eyed, and awkwardly flung together in other respects) that he should be a handsome man when public opinion shall be changed.
Since I have been editing and publishing a journal devoted to the cause of liberty and progress, I have had my mind more directed to the condition and circumstances of the free colored people than when I was the agent of an abolition society.

The result has been a corresponding change in the disposition of my time and labors.