from Jehovah his own peculiar prerogative, and must, therefore, be an aggravated sin—that it is the duty of all who are guilty, and that it is imperatively required, instantly to cease from this as well as from all other sins-that the only path of safety is the path of obedience-and that this is safe. That humanity, justice, the best interest of the slaveholder, as well as the slave, are in accordance with the law of God, and that we may safely rest on the promises of God that he will reward obedience in this, as well as in all other cases, by averting any evils which may be found as the result of obedience to his holy and righteous behests.

Such has been the scope of his argument. To do justice to his power in illustrating and enforcing it as well by the divine law, as promulgated in the word of God, as by the law written on the heart, and in the understanding, and enforced by an enlightened conscience, and confirmed by the whole history of mankind, and the dealings of Jehovah with individuals and nations, I would not attempt. Let him be heard, only, and any attempt I might make would be useless.

But, it will naturally be asked, what has been the effect produced upon the cause of the oppressed which he has thus been pleading? On those who have heard, I have no hesitation in saying the effect has been great and salutary. The decided have been aroused to more vigorous exertionthe roving confirmed, and not a few, of the comparatively few, of the decided opponents, who were induced to attend, have been converted, or brought to pause in their career of opposition.

But while I have the satisfaction of stating that the audiences, in point of numbers and moral worth, were respectable and in most instances large, still, a large proportion of the people, the professed friends of colonization, and most of our clergymen of the various denominations, and especially in this city, refused to hear. Some deeming the cause too secular to be considered by the religious community, and too unholy to be discussed from the pulpit.

Then in some instances it was found difficult to procure a suitable house, and in some we were met by absolute refusal. In some instances clergymen, profressing to be opposed to slavery, refused even to give notice of our meet

ings from the pulpit. The Rev. Mr. Dwight, one of our most talented and active ministers of the congregational order in this city, refused to give the following notice:

Mr. Thompson, from England, will lecture at 7 o'clock this evening, at the Christian chapel in Temple-street, on the subject of immediate emancipation, when he will attempt to show that such emancipation is not only required by the word of God, but is also the only just, safe or expedient remedy for American Slavery.

All the friends of liberty, humanity, and religion, are respectfully invited to attend.'

I give this instance to show the spirit of the opposition with which we have to contend, and how far this awful sin of slavery has given a tinge to the minds of some, and I fear many, of our great and good men.

But I trust none of these things move us from our purpose, never to rest till an end is put to this crying abomination of our land.

Mr. T., I trust, will ere long visit your city, and that he may be heard, and rightly appreciated, is my earnest prayer. I am, dear sir, most affectionately,

Your friend and servant,

SAMUEL FESSENDEN.

MR. THOMPSON AT PLYMOUTH, N. H.

PLYMOUTH, N. H., Nov. 17, 1834.

DEAR GARRISON-We were highly animated Thursday, the 13th, at a stage arrival in our little village, bearing the 'honored freight,' Messrs. THOMPSON, GROSVENOR and PHELPS, fresh from the field of Convention at Concord.

To see George Thompson here among us, at some period of his beneficent sojourn, we had fondly hoped, from the moment you announced to us his intended embarkation from England. But to greet him so soon after his landing, and to hear him speak, within our own walls, while his locks were yet wet with the dews of New York hospitality, was a favor we had not anticipated. What a delicate and discerning taste, by the way, this despotic NewYork tavern-keeper must have, and this mobocracy of ours in general, to vent their fine courtesies upon a subject like him! Who that beheld George Thompson merely, could imagine that there existed a brutality, even in New-York, brutal enough to do him harm or show him unkindness? Burns tells of a Scottish lass, that the ' very de'il' could not look in the face but he would cry out I canna wrang thee.' Our mobocracy might take lessons of civility and humanity of the bard's 'de'il,' as I fear they have taken, of a spirit having other existence than in the imagination of profane poetry. I really wondered, as I gazed on the elegant and interesting stranger, that a tavern-keeper could be found in all the hog-traversed streets of our republican Babylon, of a civility so swinish as to turn him from his door,-even were it to humor the sovereign and awful caprice of a man-jockey from the south? His wife and little children, too, routed of a poor home that a tavern could yield them in a strange land, the first night, I believe, of their respite from the sea! Shame on you, most magnan

imous inn-holder! and shame on the public, that will countenance the impudent brutality.

But I set out to give you a slight account of our antislavery occasion, and the addresses of our noble friends to the good people of Grafton county. It was a capital occasion. A court session had drawn together the flower of the shire. Our fine, intellectual bar, that will rank in talent and honorable character with any in New England ;--our jury pannels, the prime of the yeomanry of a temperance community;-these, with a considerable amount of merit and eminence ex officio, and the other following of a county assize, making up a pretty full representation of our local public, afforded grand materials for an anti-slavery auditory. Then we had some distinguished talent from out the county. Our ample court house, condescendingly opened to us in the evening, was filled at first ray of candle. A fair proportion of ladies graced the attendance,— the clergy from this and other surrounding towns,—and, to add dignity and interest to the meeting, gentlemen advanced somewhat in life, of high judicial station in better times than these,-now retired,-came several miles, in the air of a November evening, to countenance the occasion and hear the advocate of the Negro-gentlemen who, though not professedly abolitionists, and not altogether ready perhaps to allow the colored man his right, if it were thought immediately practicable, yet far above the vulgar prejudice against him that infects our ordinary great, and too sagacious to trifle with the black man's plea. The auditory was, on the whole, one of the finest that could be gathered, and numbered several hundreds. The Hon. S. P. Webster was prevailed on to incur the hazards of the chair. The meeting was opened by prayer from the Rev. Mr. Grosvenor our own beloved minister being called for, but not not having reached the meeting. A hymn followed-appropriate words, set to music by an ingenious abolition neighbor, who led the singing. Bro. Phelps then offered the following resolution-if I can remember accurately, through the splendid discussion that followed-That Immediate and Entire Emancipation is the only righteous, efficient, safe or practicable remedy for American slavery; and that it was the solemn duty of every American citizen

to address himself forthwith to itsconsummation, by every christian means. He sustained the resolution in a series of pertinent and forcible remarks for fifteen or twenty minutes; though evidently, to us who knew him, with restrained powers. He was succeeded by Mr. Grosvenor, who spoke about the same time; and though manifestly with intent mainly to pave the way for what was to come after, he rose to high and affecting strains of eloquence. He was especially happy in a comparison of the trifling causes which employed the zeal and talents of counsel in that Seat of Justice, with the unutterable wrongs of two millions and a half of clients, in whose behalf he pleaded. But he forebore, he said, to take the time belonging to his gifted friend, who was to follow him, for whom he hoped the candid hearing of the auditors, as he was sure he would have their hearts.

George Thompson rose before the hushed assembly. They did not cheer him―it is not their habit-and if it had been, they had no such welcome for the advocate of the despised Negro. We have wronged the colored man too long and too deeply to readily forgive him, or to regard with complacency the man who ventures to take up his cause. Had the orator risen for the Polander or the Greek, or in behalf of any honorable or classical suffering, the walls would have rung with enthusiastic acclamation; but it is otherwise towards the advocate of the poor, the despised, the injured, the scorned, and him that had none to help him.' The multitude regarded him in deep silence. Slowly, solemnly, and with wonderful expression, he summoned them to the momentous importance of the subject on which he was entering, and challenged the mention of any that could hold comparison with it, as it bore on the interests of man or the weal of this nation. After a brief preliminary, he bore away into a stream of argument and eloquent appeal to which I had witnessed no parallel, and of which I can attempt no account. For an hour-it may

be two hours-I could form no estimate of the time by its lapse he held the surprised and reluctant assembly in breathless attention. I do not conjecture their emotions or convictions. There were no plaudits-no more than at the defence before Agrippa, or the reasonings before Felix. To some the orator may have seemed beside himself'