THE
ESCAPE;
OR,
A LEAP FOR FREEDOM.
A Drama,
IN FIVE ACTS.
BY WILLIAM WELLS BROWN,
AUTHOR OF “CLOTEL,” “SKETCHES OF PLACES AND PEOPLE ABROAD,” ETC.
“Look on this picture, and on this.”—Hamlet.
BOSTON:
R. F. WALLCUT, 21 CORNHILL.
1858.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-eight,
By WILLIAM WELLS BROWN,
In the Clerk’s office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
BOSTON:
J. B. YERRINTON AND SON,
PRINTERS.
This play was written for my own amusement, andnot with the remotest thought that it would ever beseen by the public eye. I read it privately, however,to a circle of my friends, and through them was invitedto read it before a Literary Society. Since then, theDrama has been given in various parts of the country.By the earnest solicitation of some in whose judgmentI have the greatest confidence, I now present it in aprinted form to the public. As I never aspired to bea dramatist, I ask no favor for it, and have little or nosolicitude for its fate. If it is not readable, no wordof mine can make it so; if it is, to ask favor for itwould be needless.
The main features in the Drama are true. Glenand Melinda are actual characters, and still reside inCanada. Many of the incidents were drawn from myown experience of eighteen years at the South. Themarriage ceremony, as performed in the second act, isstill adhered to in many of the Southern States, especiallyin the farming districts.
The ignorance of the slave, as seen in the case of“Big Sally,” is common wherever chattel slaveryexists. The difficulties created in the domestic circleby the presence of beautiful slave women, as found inDr. Gaines’s family, is well understood by all whohave ever visited the valley of the Mississippi.
The play, no doubt, abounds in defects, but as I wasborn in slavery, and never had a day’s schooling in mylife, I owe the public no apology for errors.
W. W. B.