Douglass’s first extant remarks on Madison Washington came at the end of a lecture delivered in Cork, Ireland, on 23 October 1845. Still legally a slave, Douglass had fled the United States out of concern that his new celebrity status as the author of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (May 1845) would leave him vulnerable to capture by fugitive slave hunters. Embraced as an antislavery speaker in Great Britain, he identified with Washington as a fugitive who had wide support in antislavery circles in Great Britain, along with the tacit support of the British government. Douglass used the occasion of the speech to challenge U.S. whites’ antiblack racism and to support slaves’ right to resist all forms of tyranny. The speech was reported in the 27 October 1845 issue of the Cork Examiner; the excerpt below is taken from The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews: Volume 1: 1841–46, edited by John W. Blassingame et al. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), which draws on the Cork Examiner printing.
My friends, there are charges brought against coloured men not alone of intellectual inferiority, but of want of affection for each other. I do know that their affections are exceedingly strong. Why, but a short time ago we had a glorious illustration of affection in the heart of a black man—Maddison1 Washington, he has made some noise in the world by that act of his, it has been made the ground of some diplomacy:—he fled from Virginia for his freedom—he ran from American republican slavery, to monarchical liberty, and preferred the one decidedly to the other—he left his wife and little ones in slavery—he made up his mind to leave them, for he felt that in Virginia he was always subject to be removed from them; he ran off to Canada, he was there for two years, but there in misery; for his wife was perpetually before him, he said within himself—I can’t be free while my wife’s a slave. He left Canada to make an effort to save his wife and children, he arrived at Troy where he met with Mr. Garrett;2 a highly intellectual black man, who admonished [him] not to go, it would be perfectly fruitless. He went on however to Virginia where he was immediately taken, put with a gang of slaves on board the brig Creole, destined for Southern America. After being out nine days, he could sometimes see the iron-hearted owners contemplating joyfully the amount of money they should gain by reaching the market before it was glutted.
On the 9th day Maddison Washington succeeded in getting off his irons, and reaching his head above the hatchway he seemed inspired with the love of freedom, with the determination to get it or die in the attempt. As he came to the resolution he darted out of the hatchway, seized a handspike, felled the Captain—and found himself with his companions masters of the ship. He saved a sufficient number of the lives of those who governed the ship to reach the British Islands; there they were emancipated. This soon was found out at the other side of the Atlantic and our Congress was thrown into an uproar that Maddison Washington had in imitation of George Washington gained liberty. They branded him as being a thief, robber and murderer; they insisted on the British Government giving him back. The British Lion refused to send the bondsmen back. They did send Lord Ashburton3 as politely as possible to tell them that they were not to be the mere watchdogs of American slaveowners; and Washington with his 130 brethren are free. We are branded as not loving our brother and race. Why did Maddison Washington leave Canada where he might be free, and run the risk of going to Virginia? It has been said that it is none but those persons who have a mixture of European blood who distinguish themselves. This is not true. I know that the most intellectual and moral colored man that is now in our country is a man in whose veins no European blood courses—’tis the Rev. Mr. Garrett; and there is the Rev. Theodore Wright4—people who have no taint of European blood, yet they are as respectable and intelligent, they possess as elegant manners as I see among almost any class of people. Indeed my friends those very Americans are indebted to us for their own liberty at the present time, the first blood that gushed at Lexington, at the battle field of Worcester, and Bunker Hill (applause).5 General Jackson has to own that he owes his farm on the banks of the Mobile to the strong hand of the Negro. I could read you General Jackson’s own account of the services of the blacks to him,6 and after having done this, the base ingrates enslave us. Mr. Douglas[s] here sat down amidst the warmest applause of the meeting.