I dare own to thee that he was a Lollard; and with the religion of those bold foes to priest-vice, goes a spirit that asks why the people should be evermore the spoil and prey of lords and kings.

Early in my youth, my father, fearing rack and fagot in England, sought refuge in the Hans town of Lubeck.

There I learned grave truths,--how liberty can be won and guarded.

Later in life I saw the republics of Italy, and I asked why they were so glorious in all the arts and craft of civil life, while the braver men of France and England seemed as savages by the side of the Florentine burgess, nay, of the Lombard vine-dresser.

I saw that, even when those republics fell a victim to some tyrant or podesta, their men still preserved rights and uttered thoughts which left them more free and more great than the Commons of England after all their boasted wars.
I came back to my native land and settled in the North, as my franklin ancestry before me.