progressed none too rapidly. Some of the men had to be away at times to
attend to their farming. As for myself I had learned to plow, and was at
it from early morning until sundown. I had many laborers working for me,
plowing, sowing, building fences, clearing; in a word, reducing the land
to cultivation. It was a big job.

I had won the respect of the community by the energy with which I had
undertaken the task. The neighbors said I was an improvement on my
father. They wondered, however, if I would be as far-sighted and
acquisitive as he, if I would add to what I had or lose it.

In March I had a letter from my grandmother. She expressed pride in me
for what I had done, approved the spirit I had shown towards Zoe. She
was a great admirer of Wilberforce; and as she disliked America for its
separation from the Crown she wished the institution of slavery no good
on these shores. But she was disturbed about the conditions in England
and Europe. The old order seemed to her to be crumbling. Revolution
might break forth. The middle classes in England, having secured their
rights, as she expressed it, the laborers were now striving for the
franchise. Chartism was rampant. What would it all come to? Was England
safe against such innovation? But how about America, if the colored
people were given freedom, not of the franchise merely, but in civil
rights of property and free activity? But contemporaneous with this
letter, two events came into my life of profound influence. One was my
meeting with Russell Lamborn, the son of one of Jacksonville's numerous
lawyers. And the other was an extraordinary debate between a Whig
politician named John J. Wyatt and young Douglas. It was at the debate
that I met Lamborn.

Douglas had finished his school teaching. He had been licensed to