Some of my English
friends greatly encouraged me to go forward, and I shall never
cease to be grateful for their words of cheer and generous deeds.
I can easily pardon those who have denounced me as ambitious and
presumptuous, in view of my persistence in this enterprise. I
was but nine years from slavery. In point of mental experience,
I was but nine years old. That one, in such circumstances,
should aspire to establish a printing press, among an educated
people, might well be considered, if not ambitious, quite silly.
My American friends looked at me with astonishment! "A wood-
sawyer" offering himself to the public as an editor! A slave,
brought up in the very depths of ignorance, assuming to instruct
the highly civilized people of the north in the principles of
liberty, justice, and humanity! The thing looked absurd.
Nevertheless, I per<306>severed. I felt that the want of
education, great as it was, could be overcome by study, and that
knowledge would come by experience; and further (which was
perhaps the most controlling consideration).
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