We grew up together in the greatest amity and in due time I gave him his freedom, and again to drop into the vernacular--"that was the only nigger I ever owned." I should add that in the "War of Sections" he fell in battle bravely fighting for the freedom of his race.
It is truth to say that I cannot recall the time when I was not passionately opposed to slavery, a crank on the subject of personal liberty, if I am a crank about anything.
IV In those days a less attractive place than the city of Washington could hardly be imagined.

It was scattered over an ill-paved and half-filled oblong extending east and west from the Capitol to the White House, and north and south from the line of the Maryland hills to the Potomac River.

One does not wonder that the early Britishers, led by Tom Moore, made game of it, for it was both unpromising and unsightly.
Private carriages were not numerous.

Hackney coaches had to be especially ordered.

The only public conveyance was a rickety old omnibus which, making hourly trips, plied its lazy journey between the Navy Yard and Georgetown.