DOUGLASS, FREDERICK American orator and journalist, was born in Tuckahoe, Md., probably in Feb. 1817. His mother was a negro slave of exceptional intelligence, and his father was a white man. Until nearly eight years of age, he was under the care of his grandmother ; then he lived for a year on the plantation of Col. Edward Lloyd, of whose vast es tate his master, Capt. Aaron Anthony, was manager. After a year he was sent to Baltimore, where he lived in the family of Hugh Auld, whose brother, Thomas, had married the daughter of Capt, Anthony; Mrs. Auld treated him with marked kindness and with out her husband's knowledge began teaching him to read. With money secretly earned by blacking boots he purchased his first book, The Columbian Orator; he soon learned to write "free passes" for runaway slaves. Upon the death of Capt. Anthony in 1833, he was sent back to the plantation to serve Thomas Auld, who hired him out for a year to one Edward Covey, who had a wide reputation for disciplining slaves, but who did not break Frederick's spirit. Although a new master, William Freeland, who owned a large plantation near St. Michael's, Md., treated him with much kindness, he attempted to escape in 1836, but his plans were suspected, and he was put in gaol. From lack of evidence he was soon released, and was then sent to Hugh Auld in Balti more, where he was apprenticed as a ship caulker. He learned his trade in one year, and in Sept. 1838, masquerading as a sailor, he escaped by railway train from Baltimore to New York city. For the sake of greater safety he soon removed to New Bedford, Mass., where he changed his name from Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to Frederick Douglass, "Douglass" being adopted at the suggestion of a friend who greatly admired Scott's Lady of the Lake. For three years he worked as a day labourer in New Bedford. An extempore speech made by him before an anti-slavery meeting at Nantucket, Mass., in Aug. 1841 led to his being appointed one of the agents of the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society, and in this capacity he delivered during the next four years numerous addresses against slavery, chiefly in the New England and middle states. To quiet the suspicion that he was an impostor, in 1845 he published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Fearing his re capture, his friends persuaded him to go to England, and in 47 he lectured in Ireland, Scotland and England, and did much to enlist the sympathy of the British public with the Abolitionists in America. Before his return a sum of f 15o was raised by sub scription to secure his legal manumission, thus relieving him from the fear of being returned to slavery in pursuance of the Fugitive Slave law. From 1847 to 186o he conducted an anti-slavery weekly journal, known as The North Star, and later as Frederick Douglass's Paper, at Rochester, N.Y., and, during this time, also was a frequent speaker at anti-slavery meetings. At first a follower of Garrison and a disunionist, he allied himself after 1851 with the more conservative political abolitionists, who, under the leader ship of James G. Birney, adhered to the national Constitution and endeavoured to make slavery a dominant political issue. He disapproved of John Brown's attack upon Harper's Ferry in and declined to take any part in it. During the Civil War he was among the first to suggest the employment of negro troops by the United States Government, and two of his sons served in the Union army. After the war he was for several years a popular public lecturer. In 1871 he was assistant secretary of the Santo Domingo commission, appointed by President Grant. He was marshal of the District of Columbia in 1877-81, was recorder of deeds for the district in 1881-86, and from 1889 to 1891 was the American minister resident and consul-general in the Republic of Haiti. Douglass was widely known for his eloquence, and was one of the most effective orators whom the negro race has pro duced in America. He died in Anacostia Heights, D.C., on Feb. 20, 1895.