The voice of freedom. [volume], September 28, 1839, Image 1

About The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848

Image provided by: University of Vermont

                
THE Y0IE OF FBBEBOM.
E. A. ALLEN, Publisher. Published under the sanction of the Vermont Anti-Slavery Society. C. L. KNAPP, Editor.
VOLUME I. MOIVTPELIERj.VERMQIVT, -SEPTEMBER 98, 1839. APIRLK 39.
From the Glasgow Argus.
Glasgow Emancipation Society.
The annual meeting of this Society was held
in the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw's church on Thuriday
evening, the'lst of August, being the anniversary
of the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies.
To give readers at a distance an idea of the na
ture of this Society, we present the following
statement of its objects, as laid down in the adver
tisement calling the meeting: " Ihe Glasgow
Emancipation Society has for its object the Uni
versal Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade
the Protecting of the Eights of the newly Eman
cipated and Aboriginal Classes in the British Col
onies and the Improving of the Condition of our
tellow-bubjects, the Natives of British India ; ob
jects alike worthy of the support of the Christian,
the l atriot, and the Philanthropist."
We observed on the platform around the Chair,
which was occupied by Dr. VVardlaw, Major Gen
eral briggs, Geo. lhompson,.hsq. Kev. Dr. Heugh,
Rev. Messrs. Anderson, Baird (of Paisley,) Har
vey, and M l ear ; 1 homas Graham, V. r. Patton,
J. MacLead, one of the Magistrates of Gorbals,
D. Macintyre, G. Watson, H. Langlands, J. Mur
ray, W. Smeal, A. M'Keand, J. Keid, J. Berth,
J. S. Blyth, W. Ferguson, and G. Thorburn, Esqs.
Drs. Maxwell and Wiei, and other friends of the
Anti-Slavery cause.
After remarks by Dr. Wardlaw, the report for
the year, together with the letter of Mr. Garrison
to Wendell Phillips." (see Liberator cf June 14,)
"were read by J. 'Murray, Esq. Addresses were
then made by the Rev. Dr. Heugh, the Rev. Mr.
Harvey, and Major General Briggs ; after which,
George Ihompson, hscj. rose amidst loud cheer
ing and said :
Sir, I congratulate you and this great meeting
upon the arrival of the first anniversary of the day
which witnessed the bestowal of entire freedom
upon the colored population of the West India
Colonics. I congratulate you upon the admirable
and irreproachable conduct ol those upon whom
this right was conferred by the virtue of the Brit
ish nation they were unrevengeful while they
were slaves, and they have been equally gratelul
nnd tractable as freemen. (Lheers.) Iheircon-
duct has been marked by prudence, firmness, rea
sonableness, and industry. (Cheers.) Whilt
they have not pliantly and submissively bent to
the will of the planter,' neither have they been un
mindful of the interests and righteous claims of
those above them. (Loud and continued cheer
ing.) I congratulate you upon the freedom grant
ed to the apprenticed bondsmen of Mauritius, on
the 31st of March last. I congratulate you upon
the progress of the cause of human rights in the
United States, as depicted in the burning words
of mv unflinching and well-beloved friend, Wil
liam Lloyd Garrison. (Cheers.) Finally, I con
gratulate you upon the prospect of a Convention
of the friends of the slave from different part of the
world, to be held during the ensuing year, to con
sider the plans which remain to be adopted lor the
entire and universal overthrow of slavery and the
slave trade. And now permit me to leave the
language of congratulation, and, by an abrupt
transition, to strike for a momenta mournful chord.
I cannot resist a spontaneous impulse to embrace
this, the first public opportunity of expressing my
deep sympathy with those around me, in the loss
which "this society, this city, and the general inter
ests of humanity, have sustained, in the removal, by
the hand of death, of one whom I loved as a friend,
admired as a citizen, and venerated as a man of
God, one who was amongst the earliest, the
warmest, and the steadiest friends of this society
need I pronounce the name of Patrick Letham ?
We cherish his memory, we hallow his dust may
we catch his glorious spirit, and follow out his no
ble purposes ! I shall lake the liberty, sir, of add
ing what I think will be deemed valuable to the
information already given respecting the state of
the Anti-Slavery cause in the United btates. li
has been my privilege to receive very recently a
number of letters from distinguished abolitionists
in America, and having several of their commu
nications on my person at present, I will lay an
extract or two before this meeting. My friend
J. G. Whittier, the well known Quaker bard of
America, thus writes : " The struggle still goes
on. Discussion, every where in the churches,
the parlor, the workshop, the stage, the steamboat,
and the railroad car." 1 heard this evening some
honest friend exclaim, ' We have while slaves at
home.' If such there be, behold the way to set
them free. Let there be no unlawful outbreaks,
but calm, rational, open discussion discussion
every where. The grievance then will soon be
come apparent, the remedy too, and the ends of
justice will be satisfied. J My Iriend contiues
" Discussion goes on in the State Legislatures,
and in the Halls of Congress. Discussion literal
ly shakes the nation. We are strugglingapparent
ly against (earful odds but our confidence is
strong. The strength of God is pledged on the
side of humanity. Some of us, who have been
striving from the outset, occasionally grow weary
the harness of our warfare, worn day and night,
sometimes galls with its links of iron, and we
long for peace and quiet, but the cry of our broth
er in bonds is in our ear, and we cannot yield to
this weakness of the flesh. We must fight on."
My next extract is from the pen of II. B. Stanton,
corresponding Secretary of the American Anti
Slavery Society. He says : " The great cause
is onward in the United States. Our committee
will make unprecedented exertions during the
present year, to press our principles on the public
consideration."" We are to hold a National Anti
Slavery Convention on the 31st of July. On the
1st of August we shall celebrate the glorious An
niversary of West India Emancination." (Cheers.)
I have now great pleasure in laying before this
meeting a letter from a hig'ily respectable and no
ble minded American citizen, now in this country
Wendell Phillips, Esq. of Boston. This ac
complished scholar and warm hearted abolitionist,
who has for a time relinnuiHhed the pursuit of an
honorable profession that he may devote himself
to the cause ol his enslaved countrymen, has done
me the honor to address to me the letter which I
hold in my hand, and which I shail submit entire,
as a document well entitled to your consideration,
not less on account of the importance of the topics
which it discusses, than for the elegance and force
of the language which it employs. I am particu
larly struck ivith the just and statesmanlike views
which Mr. Philips has adopted, in reterence to the
recent attempt to bring the subject of India before
this country, by means of a British India Society.
This letter will bring me by a natural process to
the subject upon which I am peculiarly anxions to
address you to-night, and upon wiucn i snail
dwell for a few moments, if you do not see cause
to dismiss me. (Lheers.)
The following is the letter:
"My dear Thompson I am very sorry to say
no to your pressing request, but I cannot come to
Glasgow, duty lakes me elsewhere: my heart
will be with you though, on the 1st of August;
and I need not say how much pleasure it would
give me to meet, on that day especially, the men
to whom my country owes so much, and on the
snot dear to every American abolitionist, as the
scene of your triumphant refutation and stern re
buke of Breckenridge. I do not think any of you
can conceive tne leeiings wun wnicn an Ameri
can treads such scenes. You cannot realize the
debt of gratitude he feels to be due, and is eager
to pay, to those who have spoken in behalf of hu
manity, and whose voices have come to nun across
the water. The vale of Leven, Exeter Hall, Glas
gow, and Birmingham, are consecrated spots th
and of Scoble and Sturge, of Wardlaw and Bux
ton, ot Clarkson and U Uonnell, is ' hallowed
around to us. Would l could oe witn you, to
thank the English. abo!itionists,in the slave's name,
for the great experiment they have tried in behalf
of humanity lor proving, in the face ot the world
the safety and expediency ol immediate emanci
pation for writing out the demonstration of the
problem, as if with letters of light on the blue vault
ot Heaven to thank them, too, lor the fidelity
with which they have rebuked the apathy, and
denounced the guilt of the American church, in
standing aloof from this great struggle for freedom
modern times. 1 he appeals and exhortations
which have, from time to time, gone out from a-
mong you may seem to have fallen to' the ground
in vain ; but far from il : they have awakened, in
some degree at least, a slumbering Church to a
great national sin, and they have strengthened
greatly hands which were almost ready to faint
in the struggle with a giant evil. We need them
still spare us not a moment from your Christian
rebukes give us line upon line, and precept up
on precept. Uur enterprise is eminently a reli
gious one, dependent for success entirely on the
sentiment of the people. It is on hearts that wait
not for the results of West India experiments
that look to duty, and not to consequences that
disdain to make the fears of one class ot men the
measure of the rights of another that fear no evil
in the doing of God's commands it is on such
that the weight of our cause mainly rests, and on
the conversion of those, whose characters will
make them such, that its future progress must de
pend. It is upon just suck minds that your ap
peals have mostefitct. 1 hardly exaggerate when
I say that the sympathy and brotherly appeals of
British Christians are the sheet-anctior ol our cause.
Did they realize, that slavery is most frequently
defended, now in America from the Bible, that
when Abolitionists rebuke the church for uphold-
ng it, they are charged with hostility to Chris
tianity itself, they would feel this. If we construe
a text in favor of liberty, it is set down to partial
ly and prejudice. A bjuro-pean construction is
decisive. Our rebukes lose much of their force,
when they are represented, though falsely, to spring
from personal hostility from a zeal which undue
attention to a single subject has made to outrun
discretion. Your appeals sink deep they can
neither be avoided nor blunted by any such pre
tence, and their first result must be conviction.
Distance lends them something of the awful weight
of the verdict of posterity. May they never cease.
Let the light of your example shine constantly
upon us, till our Church, beneath its rays, like
Egypt's statue, shall break forth into the music of
consistent action.
' England, loo, is the fountain-head of our lite
rature. Ihe slightest censure, every argument,
every rebuke on the pages of your Reviews, strikes
on the ear of the remotest dweller in our country.
I hank God that in this the sceptre has not yet
departed from Judah that it dwells still in the
and of Vane and Milton, ot rym and Hampden,
of Sharp, and Covvper, and Wilberforce
" The dead, but sceptred sovereigns,
Who still rule our spirits from their urns."
May ' those upon whom rests their mantle be true
to the realms they sway. You have influence
where we arc not even heard. The prejudice
which treads under foot the vulgar abolitionist
dqres not proscribe the literature of the world. In
the name of the slave, 1 beseech you let literature
speak out, in deep, stern, and indignant tones, for
the press,
' Like the air,
Is seldom heard but when it speaks in thunder.'
" I am rejoiced to hear of your new movement
in regard to India. it seals trie late oi tne
slave system in America. The industry of the
Pagan shall yet wring from Christian hands the
prey, they would not yield to the commands of
conscience, or the claims of religion. Hasten the
day, for it lies with you, when the prophecy of our
Randolph (himselt a slaveholder) shall be fulfilled,
that the time would come when masters would
fly their slaves instead of slaves their masters, so
valueless would be a slave's labor in comparison
with his support. To you to the sunny plains of
Hindustan we shall owe it that our beautiful
prairies are unpolluted by the footetep of a slave
holder that the march of civilization westward
will be changed from the progress of the manacled
slave eoffle, at the bidding cf the lash, to the quiet
step of families carrying peace, intelligence, and
religion, as their household gods. Mr. Clay has
coolly calculated the value of sinews and muscles
of the bodies and souls of men and then ask
ed us whether we could reasonably expect the
south to surrender 1,200,000,000 of dollars at the
bidding of abstract principles ? Be just to India
waken that industry alone: her coast, which op
pression has kept padlocked and idle break the
spell which binds the genius of her fertile plains,
and we shall see this property in man become like
the gold in India's fairy tales dust in the slave- and fabricating nation that there is a market for cle which has received tha least encouragement
holders grasp. You cannot imagine, my dear their produce that we ask no questions when we such as indigo, linseed, &c. The elucidation of
brother, the impulse this new development of buy that the price we give will support them in these and other topics, must be deferred to anoth
England's power will give the Anti-Slavery cause administering a system of forced labor, and they er opportunity. I must, however, go back to the
in America. It is iust what we need to touch a therefore adopt and follow the trade of planters of points mentioned by our dfstinuiihpd visitor.
class of men who seem almost out of the pale of cotton, and brokers in blood. (Cheers.) Scourges Gen. Briggs. It must not be disguised that there
religious influence. Much as our efforts have been and fetters, and bolts and thumb-screws, men- is a great work to be done before India can reward
blessed much as they have accomplished tho' stealers ttnd drivers, are but ihe instruments they the industry, or obtain the benefit of the capital
truth has often floated further on the shouts of a use to accomplish a grand end, which is the reap- and enterprise of this country, and it is to this
mob, than our feeble voices could have carried it; ing of gain by the supply of our unceasing de- work that I want you and the country at laroe to
still, our progress has served but to show us more mands. And yet we are an anti-slavery nation gird yourselves. I remember the admonition giv
clearly the Alps which lie beyond. The evil is and yet we paid twenty millions to get rid of the en me by a friend to-day, who said, " Pray do
so deep-rooted, the weight of interest and preju- abomination of negro bondadge in our own colo- not deal in the stale vague talk about ' good gov-
dice enlisted on its side so vast ambition clinging nies and yet we have societies for the conversion eminent,' which means any thing or nothing, as
to politichl power, wealth to the means of further of other nations to abolition principles ! Is there folks please to interpret it, but tell us what India
gain that we have sometimes feared they would no inconsistency here ! Are not our professions wants, and how we are to get it." I say then,
be able to put off emancipation till the charter of justly liable to reproach, and to be branded as in- that that Government of India, which shall de-
theslave's freedom would be sealed with blood sincere and hypocritical? While we are assem- serve the name of good, will reduce and fore v-
that our day of freedom would be like Egypt s, bled here, to point our appeils across theAtlan- er fix the land-tax, which is now the curse of the
when 'God came forth from his place, his light tic, that they may reach, if possible, the conscience country blighting its produce spreading sterili
hand clothed in thunder,' and the jubilee of Israel of the American, might not a voice of thunder ty over the soil, and reducing the cultivator to the
' party times,' when
' Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg
Yea curb and woo for leave to do them good.'
But from India a voice comes clothed with the
omnipotence of self-interest, and the wisdom
was echoed by Egypts wailing for her flrst-born. speak from every ware-house in this city, gorged state of a beggar. When India is blessed with
It is not the thoughtful, the sober-minded, the with the produce of the slave from every spin- good government, her ancient institutions will be
conscientious, for whom we fear. With them ningjenny and loom employed in theserviceof respected, her municipial machinery will be em
truth will finally prevail. It is not that we want slavery 'Woe untfy you, Scribes, Pharisees and ployed, her native teachers will be sent to their ap
eloquence or Christian zeal enough to sustain the. Hypocrites,' for you fend memorials, and Mission- propriate occupation, her rivers will be rendered
conflict with such and with your aid to come off ariesand remonstrances, over sea and land, to de- navigable, roads and connecting canals will be
conquerors. We know, as your Whately says of nounce the crime of holding men in bondage, made, and the produce of the land will be admit-
Galileo, that if Garrison could have been answer- while you yourselves stay at home to raise the ted to these ports upon the principle of reciprocal
ed, he had never been mobbed that May's Chris- wages of unrighteousness the price of blood duties. .You will ask how are these things to
tion firmness Smith s world-wide philanthropy and feed to fatness the cupidity of those who are be obtained ? I answer, by agitation, by discus-
Chapman's daring energy and Weld's soul of willing to sell themselvos to you in the service of sion, by petition. India, it is true has a Board of
fire can never be quelled, and will finally kindle sin. All this we should desire if India were not Control, but India wants another Board. The
a public feeling, before which opposition must melt ours or if the country were blotted from the map board of control she wants is a board consisting of
away. But how hard to reach the callous heart of the world. How much more, while India is the whole British people alive to the claims of
of selfishness the blinded conscience, over which in existence while India is an integral portion of misery awake to their own interests sensible of
a corrupt church has thrown its shield, lest any our own dominions ? Why prefer New Orleans their responsibility, and determined to do their du-
ray of truth pierce its dark chambers! How shall to Calcutta Mobile to Bombay Cuba to Ma- ty. Let these things be brought to pass, and the
we address that large class of men with whom dras? Why leave freemen famishing by mill- spell which has bound India shall be broken a
dollars are always a weightier consideration than ions on the banks of the Ganges and Jumna, that voice shall be heard crying, from the banks of the
duties prices current stronger argument than you may steal men from the banks of the Gambia Indus and the Ganges to the myriad population of
proof of holy writ? But India can speak in tones find the St. Mary's, and lash them to their hated our Eastern empire, 'Arise, shine, for your light
which will corr.mand a hearing. Our appeal has task on the banks of the Mississippi and the Po- iscome' the Hindoo shall raise his head and
been entreaty for the times in America are those tomac ? (Great cheering.) But enough ; you see, smile the earth shall yield herincrease therich-
you leel the crime of despising that spledid coun- es ol the iiast, not ' barbaric gold and pearl alone,
try and that interesting race, on whose behalf so but the bountiful crop of the industrious cultivator
eloquent an appeal has been made, in the honest, shall find their way to these islands, and all who
fearless, admirable speech of my gallant friend have labored to succor and illuminate India shall
Major-Genera! Briggs. (Cheers.) You are not rejoice in the reflex influence of their benevolence,
called unon to cease vour remonstrances ao-ninst Sir. I will conclude. I reioire in the nrnsnpctn
which might have been slighted from the pulpit, slavery ; you are not required to forego any of which are opening for India. I exult in the results
will be to such men oracular from the. market- the comforsts or luxuries of lifp. or to circumscribe which will, through India, be wrnno-ht out for ih
place. Gladly will we make a pilgrimage and your trading operations, or to go to war with pi- rest of the world. I call upon the slave in Ameri
bow with more than eastern devotion on the banks ratical nations, to levy discriminating duties, or ca and the children in Africa to rejoice but espe
of the Ganges, if his holy waters shall be able to to enforce forgotten treaties, or to call together cially do I call upon my country to awake to a
wear away the fetters of the slave. Godspeed congresses of nations : but nuietlv. consistent! v. sense of her dread accountableness to God. for the
the progress of your society ; may it soon find in and energetically, to improve your own territory use of the mighty power by which she can control
its ranks the whole phalanx of sacred and veter- to emnlov vour own husbandmen to renn vour the fortunes and the fate of a larire proportion of
an abolitionists. No single divided effort, but a own soil in a word, to nut intn nrpr;,tinn n nrin. the whole human race. (Loud cheers.
:.J . i .1 i.l a ...... . . 1 - I '
unueu one 10 grannie wmi me weaim, iniiuence, cio c o no itica economv. which won d as sure v
and power, embattled against you. Is it not Schil- work the destruction of slavery and thejslave
ler who says : 'i Divide the thunder into single trade as the produce of the labor of fifty millions
notes and it becomes a lullaby for children but of freemen. nrnnirpn' nt ihp rntP nf -nnnnPo nor
pour it forth in one quick peal, and the royal day for eachjman, must drive out of every market,
sound shall shake the heavens so may it be where fair r-nmnptitinn i nprmitprl n,!,,,..
with you and God grant that without waiting 0fsix millions of slaves, whose support averages
for the 'United States to be consistent' before from eighteen to thirty pence per day. (Cheers.)
our ears are dust, the jubilee of emancipated mill- How truy unexceptionable, how simple, how
ions may reach us from -Mexico to the Potomac, patriotic, how certain is the course thus pointed
and from the Atlantic to the rocky mountains. out.
Yours truly, and most aftectionate y, Let me Si ;f in the fewcst nossible
WfclNLUibLi lHlLLlPk. words, the principal grounds on which I deem it cheering.)
Sir, if I should now sit down, no one here the duty of this nation, and of such a meeting as
would venture to say I had not made an eloquent this in particular, to take up the cause of India.
speech. (Cheers.) I said the letter of Mr. Phil- India, in itself considered, is worthy of'our regard.
ips would bring me naturally to the subject of It is the largest, richest, and most available por-
India : you perceive it has done so. Mr. Phil- tion of our territory. The people, eighty or a
ips attaches great, but not undeserved, import- hundred million in number, are civilized, ingenu-
ance to the question which, during the last twelve ous, docile, acute and industrious they are be-
months, I have more than once had the honor of sides, in need of an interposition to save them from
bringing before you. You are told that the sue- an oppressive system which is breeding discon-
cessful prosecution of certain plans to raise and tent, and occasional disease, and famine, and death.
regenerate India, seals the late of the slave sys- lheir intellectual condition requires our consider-
tem of America. Ihisisiust this is true. But ation and aid. Various kinds ol slavery exist United States, the horfip nf (tpmopMtiV nrlnJo.
do these projects respecting India admit of sue- which have to be inquired into and abolished, if nnd despotic practices Canada, giving in its ad
cess are they such as recommend themselves to within the legitimate sphere of our authority in besion to "thpDivinp rio-ht nf Kin " ,1
reasonable and practical men ? They are. First, that country. The inhabitants of India, if raised the asylum of the oppressed ! Alas! that our own
we point to the continents and islands of Ameri- from their present state ofioverty, would become land should be the oppressor ! that the foul print
ca. we say, see tnere.neariy six millions ol hu- me Destana largest consumers ol the surplus man- nf s nverv's font should hp Wi nnnn tlm r
mm beings injslavery, under a torturing lash and ufactures of our own country. The political con- the free! Surely patriotism, not less than phi-
vertical sun. Look next to Africa hourly rent dition ot India must be affected beneficially by ev- lanthronv and relin-ion. demands nf rvorv n,n.-
by wars, and plundered of her children look at ery philanthropic effort, inasmuch as our tenure hearted friend of this Republic, the most earnest
the irrefragable figures of Mr. Buxton, which of dominion is the attachment of the people to our and unremitted exertions for the overthrow of thij
have demonstrated the soul-harrowing truth lhat sway. Look then at India by itself. Half a mil- bane io our nrosneritv for the winino- nfT of 1;.
a thousand human beings are, during every four- lion of square miles of territory. Ought not its foulest blot upon our national reputation,
and-twenty hours, butchered with steel, or barter- resources to be explored ? One hundred millions For the first half of my journey from Pittsbun'In
ed for gold, lhat the slave systems of Christian of inhabitants. Ought not their wants to be con- I was so fortunate as to have agreeable and intelli-
countnes may continue. (Hear.) You ask, why sidered f 1 hey are poor, they must be fed they gent travelling companions, though I can say buf
this bloody and inhuman sacrifice of helpless be- are naked, they must be clothed they are disaf-1 little in commendation of the roads, the coaches,
ings why this infernal machinery of whips and fecled, they must be conciliated they are indus- or the drivers. Tho first ami sprnn,! 'nf thoeo wm
chains, and stocks & collars ? I answer, that you trious, they must be employed. Our humanity, in a condition that called emphatically for repair;
may clothe yourselves in cotton that you may our patriotism, our justice, are appealed to in be- and the last were in greater need of reformation
drink coffee, and sweeten your draught with su- half of British India. But my next ground is the than either of the former. A bad road and a'
gar that you may. dine on rice, or regale your- anti-slavery aspect of the question. I see the bat- leaky coach in a rainy day are mere accidents
selves with tobacco. (Cheers.) Sir, were a man tie of freedom for the degraded slave must be which a little philosophy will enable one pntient
to drop from the clouds, and to be told these fought on the plains India. I see that we every ly to endure, but when we have added to these a
things, he would naturally infer that these arti- moment are guilty of great inconsistency, if not swearinc. roistering, drinkino- driver who fpp
cles were indispensable that they could be grown crime, while we neglect India, and support the himself compelled at every groggery ori the' road
only In America that they could be produced slave systems of America. ' I see that, in the cir- to " keep his spirits up by pouring spirits down,"
oniy Dy siave moor mat irom Airica aione couia cumsiauces oi inuia, we nave lnexnausuuie mate- the traveler has need either ol an extra share of
slaves be procured, and that they could only be rials for anti-slavery appeals to this country ; ap- patience or of stupidity, if he would ride without
kept at work by the means now employed, peals to every class of motives by which men are injury to his good nature, or apprehension for his
(Cheers.) What would he think what would he moved to pity or impelled to action. I see that we safety. For mv own part I make no nrptpntinn
say, if he were told that these articles might be possess, as a nation, the power of immediately di- to either of these virtuc-s; but however much I
raised in the country from which the slaves had minishing, and ultimately destroying the slave- might have been disposed to heat, there was a suf
been dragged that an honorable and extensive trade and slavery, by improving the condition of ficiencv of rain that found its wnv thmnnli il
commerce might be carried on without the necess- the natives, and developing the physical resourpes roof of the coach to keep me abundantly cool, while
ity of wars, and without the horrors of slavery? of India. I see that we are placed in circumstan- the animated conversation of my companions in
(Cheers.) What would he think if told, that the ces of fearful responsibility, nnd that we cannot tribulation did not permit my thoughts to dwell
people who are the chief consumers, and, there- justify our profession before men, or clear our con- too exclusively upon the discomforts of the way.
fore, the principal supporters of American slavery, sciences before God, unless we use the means that A remark was made by one of our company
have an empire of their own whosebeauty caii- are placed in our hands. I see, finally, that by upon the general good appearance of the colored
not be exaggerated whose extent is limitless calling attention to India, and exhibiting our pa- people of Pittsburgh, which led to a discussion 6f
whose soil is exhaustlessly rich, and whose pop- cific, yet powerful principles of action, we secure the character of that portion of our population, and
ulation is reckoned by scores of millions from the attention and support of thoughtful, practi- of the subjects of slavery and emancipation ener
which they might obtain without coercion un- cal, and reasoning men men who would turn ally. " I am no abolt'ionist," said one cenUeman,
burdened with taxes, unstained by blood all that from us if we professed to rely solely upon moral " but I o.-casionally help three or four boor tte
the wants and luxurious appetites of European machinery against slavery, while our capital and groes to Canada, without asking any imperlirient
aye, and American nations could possibly require, trade were sustaining it, but arc ready to join us questions." His nllusion was to fugitives from
(Loud cheering.) What, I ask would be the o- when our precepts and our practices correspond, & slavery, and I was glad too ee that this anriunci
pinion of a visitant from another sphere, if told the truth of our doctrines is reccommended by the ation of his sympathy with the hunted faoiiive
these things? How do these things come to pass? performance of our duties. I have no time to dwell fleeing for his life from the prison house ofAmer
Do the Americans, Brazillians, and French and as I intended, upon the openings for commerce, & ican bondage, was received with evident satifac
Spanish Colonists, instinctively delight in inflict- the acquisition of worth which India presents tion by all m the coach Tho man had entertain"
ing tortures? Is the love of chains and slavery nor to trace, which I might have done most clear- ed erroneous views cf the abolitionists nnd exhibU
their ruling passion ? No. They love money ly, the extraordinary progress which has been ted in his conversation a deplorable ignorance of
they see that we are an enterprising;, ingenious made in the growth and exportation of every arti- tho subject of slavery and it apnronrfatB remrdv.
Britain! thy voice can bid the dawn ascend,
On thee alone the eyes of Asia bend.
High Arbitress! to tbee her hopes are given,
Sole pledge of bliss, and delegate of Heaven ',
In thy dread mantle alt her fates repose,
Or big with blessings or o'ercast with woeaj
And future ages shall thy mandate keep,
Smile at thy touch, or at thy bidding weep.
Oh! to thy god-like destiny arise!
Awake and meet the purpose of the skies!
Wide as thy sceptre wares, let India loarn,
What virtues roand the shrine of empire burrtv
(Mr. Tho.npson sat down amid long carrtinueel
From the Pittsburgh Christia'ri Witness.
Letter from the Editor.
Erie. Sept. 6. 1S39.
After a fatiq-uinff ride of two davs and one mVhf..
I find myself upon the border of that nreat inland
sea which foms a portion of the northern bounda
ry of lennsylvania. Here are its blue waters
stretching far away before my eye, washing the'
shores of two Empires as distinct in their theories
of government as they are in their practice. The'