G[eorge] B. V[ashon] to Frederick Douglass, June 22, 1855

DEAR FRIEND DOUGLASS:--

More than a month has now elapsed since I last [suffered] you to hear from me. Do not, I entreat you, be too severe in your judgments upon this silence. The duties of my present calling in life exact a larger share of my time; and when I do have a little leisure I find it far more accordant with a temperament unhappily not too active to while it away over the pages of some pleasant book, than to devote it to the jotting down of my own significant relections. Add to this, too, the fact that am st[?{ed away here in retreat whose daily quiet is unbroken save by a repetion of the incidents which happened yesterday and the recurrence of which may be looked for to-morrow; and you can readily imagine that, should you, who are already acquainted with the general routine of my existence again call upon me for the story of it. I might in truth [illegible] with Canning's knife-grinder. A Story [illegible] you! I have none to tell, Sir.

Then, again, if the announcement of some incident that has occurred in the "busy haunts of men," should penetrate into our service it comes to us so decked out with murmerings with approvals or censures, at the hands of the journalists, our sole mediums of communication with the outer world, that an original [illegible] with regard to it is an utter impossibility. I trust that these several excuses will [be accepted graciously by you, especially, as they are offered preliminarily to a promise of being more regular in correspondence in future.

It was a matter of both of graticication and regret to me, to learn tha your aide and zealous co-worker, Miss Griffiths, was about to [illegible] her native England" - of gratification bcause that estimable lady will doublless [illegible] much pleasure in seeing once more her [illegible] of former days,-- of regret, because the oppressed and the enslaved will mecessarily, during her absence be deprived of an earnest and [illegible] advocate. Well, indeed, does she deserve encomiums and noble acknowledgments [illegible] assistance which you expressed in reference to her, in announcing her departure. She [illegible] truly devoted and self-sacrifing in her philanthropy, and in this, can afford an exemplary duty to many a derelict abolutionist. It is a sad reflection that too many of the professed friends of the colored man have either never learned, or to readily forget the fact that does not stand in [illegible] merely of words of [illegible], but of acts of earnest, practical beneviolence. It is hard enough for him who has fallen among thieves and been left bleeding in the highway, to see the priest and the levite pass by on the other side:-- it is more than humans bear, to learn that the good Samaritan has nothing bur expressions of sympathy, and tears of woo, to serve us a balm for his many wounds. But let me rather speak of one who is faithful than of many who are false. Sincerely do I trust tha a safe voyage, a pleasant visit and a speedy return to her chosen field of labor, may be accorded to our worthy friend. Her active zeal merits, as a reward, the furlough which she has now taken but the good servive she has rendered thus far in the battle of freedom, [illegible] too valuable a nature to allow us willingly to perceive her long absent from her past.

I hope to have the pleasure of meeting with you, next week, at the Syracuse Convention.-- It seems to me that it has been called very opportunely; and I. therefore, anticipate much good to result from its assembling. A very few such demonstrations as the late Kansas outrages, will most certainly prompt Northern men to invoke the protection of the Federal Constitution in behalf of their own liberties and when they are once alled upon to [illegible] digilently into its provisions in view of the aggressions of the slave power, it will not be long before they discover that those provisions [illegible] justly and legally construed, are as equally efficacious for the security of the rights on black as of of white Americans. It will, indeed, be a great pleasure to meet with the Hon. Gerrit Smith, Beriah Green, William Goodell, and other nobe champions of the right, whoever labored to direct the political power of the nation into such changes as will [illegible] securing the blessings of liberty to every man, woman and child within the [illegible] on the Union.

"Is there a North?" [Illegible] in view of the conduct of the Northern delegates in the recent Know Nothing conclave, there [illegible] to be a pretty decided one. The [illegible] current shows a plentiful supply of [illegible] in the market. The ossification of the [illegible] column, this side of Mason and Dixon's line has certainly increased in a wonderful [illegible] and it is, indeed, very [illegible] to [illegible] the the only vertebra which continues to exhibit a cartilagious texture is the one representing our own State. But that is [illegible]; and the people who have [illegible] numbered Gerrit Smith among their [illegible], and who have been chosen [illegible], will yet set the masses [illegible] that their instincts, like those of their [illegible] im Massachusetts and other [illegible] like her, are true to freedom.

Truly yours, &c.

GBV

MCGRAWVILLE, June 22, 1855