After a day or two, Madame de Thoux told her brother more particularly of her affairs.  The death of her husband had left her an ample fortune, which she generously offered to share with the family.  When she asked George what way she could best apply it for him, he answered, “Give me an education, Emily; that has always been my heart’s desire.  Then, I can do all the rest.”

On mature deliberation, it was decided that the whole family should go, for some years, to France; whither they sailed, carrying Emmeline with them.

The good looks of the latter won the affection of the first mate of the vessel; and, shortly after entering the port, she became his wife.

George remained four years at a French university, and, applying himself with an unintermitted zeal, obtained a very thorough education.

Political troubles in France, at last, led the family again to seek an asylum in this country.

George’s feelings and views, as an educated man, may be best expressed in a letter to one of his friends.

“I feel somewhat at a loss, as to my future course.  True, as you have said to me, I might mingle in the circles of the whites, in this country, my shade of color is so slight, and that of my wife and family scarce perceptible.  Well, perhaps, on sufferance, I might.  But, to tell you the truth, I have no wish to.

“My sympathies are not for my father’s race, but for my mother’s.  To him I was no more than a fine dog or horse:  to my poor heart-broken mother I was a child; and, though I never saw her, after the cruel sale that separated us, till she died, yet I know she always loved me dearly.  I know it by my own heart.  When I think of all she suffered, of my own early sufferings, of the distresses and struggles of my heroic wife, of my sister, sold in the New Orleans slave-market,—­though I hope to have no unchristian sentiments, yet I may be excused for saying, I have no wish to pass for an American, or to identify myself with them.

“It is with the oppressed, enslaved African race that I cast in my lot; and, if I wished anything, I would wish myself two shades darker, rather than one lighter.

“The desire and yearning of my soul is for an African nationality.  I want a people that shall have a tangible, separate existence of its own; and where am I to look for it?  Not in Hayti; for in Hayti they had nothing to start with.  A stream cannot rise above its fountain.  The race that formed the character of the Haytiens was a worn-out, effeminate one; and, of course, the subject race will be centuries in rising to anything.

“Where, then, shall I look?  On the shores of Africa I see a republic,—­a republic formed of picked men, who, by energy and self-educating force, have, in many cases, individually, raised themselves above a condition of slavery.  Having gone through a preparatory stage of feebleness, this republic has, at last, become an acknowledged nation on the face of the earth,—­acknowledged by both France and England.  There it is my wish to go, and find myself a people.