Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland Part 9

But, though a heaven-wide remove from slavery, the apprentices.h.i.+p was not a paradise to the parties. The dissonance was inherent in the nature of the plan. Looking to harmonious results, it gave the planters too much power, or too little; the negroes too much liberty, or too little.

The consequence was, interminable disputes between masters and apprentices; between planters and special justices; between the Home Government and the Colonial authorities. The majority of the justices, who had the chief agency in executing the Abolition act, endeavored to do it in its humane spirit. But too many of them could not withstand the seductive wit and wine of a cla.s.s, whose chivalry and hospitality are proverbial wherever unpaid labor has shed its liberalizing influences.

Antigua and the Bermudas discarded the apprentices.h.i.+p, and adopted complete abolition, the Act giving to the Colonies the alternative.

Experience justified the wisdom of their choice. They reaped all the good fruits of the apprentices.h.i.+p, and none of the bad. Messrs. Thome and Kimball, of this country, visited Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, in 1837. From their admirable "Six Months Tour," I quote the following description of the "immediate" conversion to men, of 30,000 slaves of Antigua, on the 1st of August, 1834:

"For some time previous to the 1st of August, forebodings of disaster lowered over the island. The day was fixed! Thirty thousand degraded human beings were to be brought forth from the dungeon of slavery, and 'turned loose on the community,' and this was to be done 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye!' Gloomy apprehensions were entertained by many of the planters. Some timorous families did not go to bed on the night of the 31st of July; fear drove sleep from their eyes, and they awaited with fluttering pulse the hour of midnight, fearing lest the same bell which sounded the jubilee of the slaves might toll the death-knell of the masters. Several American vessels which had lain for weeks in the harbor weighed anchor on the 31st of July, and made their escape, through actual fear that the island would be destroyed on the following day. * * * The Wesleyans kept 'watch night' in all their chapels on the night of the 31st. At St. John's, the s.p.a.cious building was filled with the candidates for liberty. All was animation and eagerness. A mighty chorus of voices swelled the song of expectation and joy, and, as they united in prayer, the voice of the leader was drowned in universal acclamations of thanksgiving, and praise, and blessing, and honor, and glory to G.o.d, who had come down for their deliverance. In such exercises the evening was spent until the hour of twelve approached. The missionary then proposed that, when the clock on the cathedral should begin to strike, the whole congregation should fall upon their knees, and receive the boon of freedom in silence. Accordingly, as the loud bell tolled its first note, the immense a.s.sembly fell prostrate on their knees.

All was silence, save the quivering half-stifled breath of the struggling spirit. The slow notes of the clock fell upon the mult.i.tude; peal on peal, peal on peal, rolled over the prostrate throng, in tones of angels' voices, thrilling among the desolate chords and weary heart-strings. Scarce had the clock sounded its last note, when the lightning flashed vividly around, and a loud peal of thunder roared along the sky--G.o.d's pillar of fire and trump of jubilee! A moment of profoundest silence pa.s.sed--then came the _burst_--they broke forth in prayer; they shouted, they sung, 'Glory,' 'alleluia;' they clapped their hands, leaped up, fell down, clasped each other in their free arms, cried, laughed, went to and fro, tossing upward their unfettered hands; but high above the whole there was a mighty sound, which ever and anon swelled up; it was the utterings in broken negro dialect of grat.i.tude to G.o.d."

The experiment of immediate abolition in Antigua and the Bermudas, and of the apprentices.h.i.+p in the other Colonies, has established the following facts: That, while melioration is a great improvement on chattel slavery, yet immediate and complete emanc.i.p.ation is far preferable: That either change is safe to the person and property of the master: That, for either, it is rather the master than the slave who needs preparation.

Considerations of principle, uniting with a ma.s.s of facts showing the superiority of immediate emanc.i.p.ation over the apprentices.h.i.+p, induced the Abolitionists of England, in 1836-7, to take a final stand for the complete disenthralment of the negro. A numerous Convention of delegates met in London, in November, 1837; resolved that the apprentices.h.i.+p should cease on or before the first of August, 1838; memorialized the Government against its continuance; and, through a deputation, waited on the Colonial Secretary, to enforce their appeal. They were coldly, not to say contemptuously, treated by Lord Glenelg. After selecting a Central Committee, to watch the Ministry and Parliament, the delegates went home to agitate the country. Thompson, Wardlaw, Smeal, and their coadjutors, aroused Scotland; whilst Sturge, Buxton, Scoble, and their friends, shook England. In the course of the fall and winter, pet.i.tions poured into Parliament in unprecedented numbers, whilst seven hundred thousand women presented their prayer to the Queen in behalf of her oppressed female subjects in the Western isles.

Parliament began to move. On the 20th of February, 1838, Lord Brougham, in presenting a pet.i.tion from Glasgow and vicinity, signed by upwards of 100,000 persons, moved a series of resolutions for the speedy termination of the apprentices.h.i.+p, supporting them by a speech worthy of his brightest fame, and whose immediate publication produced a deep impression upon the country. I cannot forbear quoting the closing paragraph of the peroration.

Said Lord Brougham:

"So now the fullness of time is come for at length discharging our duty to the African captive. I have demonstrated to you that everything is ordered--every previous step taken--all safe, by experience shown to be all safe, for the long-desired consummation.

The time has come, the trial has been made, the hour is striking: you have no longer a pretext for hesitation, or faltering, or delay. The slave has shown, by four years' blameless behavior and devotion to the pursuits of peaceful industry, that he is as fit for his freedom as any English peasant--aye, or any lord whom I now address. I demand his rights; I demand his liberty without stint.

In the name of justice and of law, in the name of reason, in the name of G.o.d, who has given you no right to work injustice, I demand that your brother be no longer trampled upon as your slave! I make my appeal to the Commons, who represent the free people of England, and I require at their hands the performance of that condition for which they paid so enormous a price--that condition which all their const.i.tuents are in breathless anxiety to see fulfilled! I appeal to this House. Hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the world, to you I appeal for justice! Patrons of all the arts that humanize mankind, under your protection I place humanity herself!

To the merciful Sovereign of a free people, I call aloud for mercy to the hundreds of thousands for whom half a million of her Christian sisters have cried aloud; I ask that their cry may not have risen in vain. But first I turn my eye to the Throne of all Justice, and devoutly humbling myself before Him who is of purer eyes than to behold such vast iniquities, I implore that the curse hovering over the head of the unjust and oppressor be averted from us--that your hearts may be turned to mercy--and that over all the earth His will may at length be done."

On the 29th of March, Sir George Strickland brought forward a motion in the Commons, for the termination of the apprentices.h.i.+p on the 1st of August following. Ministers resisted, and it was lost. While the motion was pending, two large anti-slavery conventions met in London, and soon afterwards five thronged meetings were held in Exeter Hall, in whose proceedings Brougham, Buxton, O'Connell, and other distinguished men, played a prominent part. The obstinate course of the Cabinet had not only exasperated public opinion at home, but had produced a feverish excitement amongst the apprentices in the Colonies.

In the midst of this furious contest, whose issue was shrouded in darkness, light suddenly broke in from an unexpected quarter. Lo! a ministerial dispatch, dated the very day after the November convention met, appeared in the West India newspapers, addressed to the Colonial Governors, in which Lord Glenelg informed them that agitation had again commenced, and would no doubt go on as before, and urging them to impress on the Legislatures the necessity of doing for themselves, and in season, what the people of England were seeking to compel the Parliament to do for them. Thus the Cabinet, while presenting a bold front at home, was saving its life by indirectly and secretly doing the work Abolitionists were forcing it to perform.

Simultaneously with the arrival in England of the journals containing copies of the dispatch, came the news, that the two small islands of Montserrat and Nevis had yielded to the ministerial solicitation, and resolved to emanc.i.p.ate their apprentices on the 1st of August. Other small islands soon copied their example. Barbadoes, with her 83,000 apprentices, followed in the train. Then came Jamaica, with her 330,000.

This settled the question. Other Colonies now gave way, and ministers pledged themselves that all should be completed by the appointed day. It was done--the Cabinet averted an inglorious defeat--the planters escaped a hurricane of violence in a dark night of negro insurrection--and, on the first day of August, 1838, the friends of emanc.i.p.ation a.s.sembled in all parts of the Empire, to render thanksgiving to G.o.d for the final overthrow of British negro slavery.

The great work of 1834 and 1838, which we have hastily scanned, was accomplished by the People, and not by the Government; by the Democracy, as distinguished from the Aristocracy--the latter moving only when impelled by the former. Of political parties, the large share of Abolitionists came from the liberals. Of religious sects, the most active were the Friends, the Baptists, and the Independents. The cry occasionally heard in this country, that the abolition of West India Slavery was intended to be an indirect blow at American republicanism, is the shallow cant of owlish ignorance or demagogical hypocrisy. The Englishmen who bore a prominent part in the Abolition cause, generally admire our free inst.i.tutions, and are now efficient laborers in those reforms which aim to cripple the power of the privileged orders, to prevent cla.s.s legislation, and to secure the equal rights of the ma.s.ses of their countrymen.

The conduct of the emanc.i.p.ated negroes during the last ten years has justified the eulogium p.r.o.nounced upon them by Lord Brougham, in the last of the two quotations from him. The magistrate has driven out the overseer; the school has taken the place of the whipping-post; the press has supplanted the tread-mill. It is said that the large landed estates are diminis.h.i.+ng in value; that the quant.i.ty of sugar, coffee, and rum, annually produced, decreases; that the negroes are reluctant to labor upon these large properties, preferring to set up little shops, or work at trades, or cultivate small grounds on their own account. In the ma.s.s of conflicting testimony, it is difficult to get at the precise facts. I presume that, to a large extent, these reports are true. Monopolies in the flesh of man, and in the soil he tills, are at war with Nature and with G.o.d. If they have been long continued, a change will produce some bitter fruits. But they will be the growth of the evil rather than the remedy. The tropics belong to the colored race. The Saxon must abandon the West Indies. His huge landed estates must inevitably continue to diminish in value till they are broken up into small freeholds, each being cultivated by its individual owner. Such a consummation will be deprecated only by those who believe that the chief end of poor men, in hot climates, is to work as day-laborers, on small wages, for bloated capitalists, in the production of large quant.i.ties of cotton, coffee, sugar, and rum.

CHAPTER XIX.

Notices of some Prominent Abolitionists--T. Fowell Buxton--Zachary Macaulay--Joseph Sturge--William Allen--James Cropper--Joseph and Samuel Gurney--George William Alexander--Thomas Pringle--Charles Stuart--John Scoble--George Thompson--Rev. Dr. Thomson--Rev. Dr.

Wardlaw--Rev. Dr. Ritchie--Rev. Mr. James--Rev. Messrs. Hinton, Brock, Bevan, and Burnet.

Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton was the Abolition leader in the House of Commons during the Anti-Slavery conflicts of 1832 and 1833. His life is a beautiful ill.u.s.tration of Solomon's saying, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." At six years of age, Thomas lost his father; but there was left to him that most valuable of blessings, a vigorous-minded, well-educated, virtuous mother, who watched his young days with pains-taking solicitude. He was naturally of a sportive, roving disposition, and, when at school or college, made rather greater proficiency in the practice of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng than in the study of mathematics and the languages. Though his juvenile tastes led him to scatter large quant.i.ties of that erratic grain called "wild oats," the teachings of his mother inclined his maturer years to the cultivation of the more profitable fields of Humanity and Philanthropy. The training of the child was shown in the actions of the man. Mr. Buxton's public life was devoted to meliorating the condition of the unfortunate cla.s.ses of society. Especially was he the friend of prisoners, criminals and slaves. While a young man, he took a lively interest in Prison Discipline--published a work on that subject in 1816, being the result of observations in the prisons of France and Belgium--and having taken his seat in the Commons in 1819, joined Mackintosh in his efforts to limit the death-penalty, and soften other severe features of the criminal code.

Surrounded by a strong Quaker influence from his youth, his mother being a Friend, which was subsequently increased by his marriage with a sister of the Gurneys and Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, (he had been accompanied by J. J.

Gurney and Mrs. F. in his continental tour,) Mr. Buxton's mind was early turned toward the state of slavery in the Colonies. In 1821, (I think,) immediately after he had delivered an able speech in the House on Prison Discipline, Mr. Wilberforce wrote him an earnest letter, alluding to his own services in abolis.h.i.+ng the slave trade, and requesting Buxton to join him in "a truly holy alliance" for meliorating the condition of the negro slaves, and ultimately advancing them to the rank of a free peasantry; and, in view of his advancing years, solicited Buxton to become his successor in "the blessed service," when increasing infirmities should compel him to relinquish the lead to younger hands.

Mr. Buxton at once threw his mind and heart into the work, and his subsequent ability and devotion to it justified the compliment of Wilberforce, a few years afterward, when he called him his "Parliamentary Executor."

The resolutions of 1823, which have already been mentioned, were moved by Mr. Canning, as an amendment to a more radical proposition introduced by Mr. Buxton. To him, therefore, humanity is indebted for the first important ministerial step towards Abolition, which was the precursor of all that followed till the end was attained. It is with reference to the debate on this occasion, I believe, that the anecdote is told of "Brougham helping Buxton, and Buxton helping Brougham." Buxton was to move the proposition, and Brougham was to second him. Due notice had been given, and the West India interest was in commotion. Buxton antic.i.p.ated that an attempt would be made to cough and sc.r.a.pe him down--not an unusual practice in this "a.s.sembly of the first gentlemen in the world." Just as Buxton was rising, Brougham whispered to him, "I will cheer _you_ with all my might, and then you must cheer _me_."

"Agreed!" responded the agitated brewer, who, in the suppressed mutterings and growlings, saw a storm was brewing. But he went on, Brougham crying "Hear! hear! hear!" so vigorously, and stamping and cheering so l.u.s.tily, that the West Indians were dumb with wonder, and permitted Buxton to finish his speech without much interruption. Mr.

Canning replied in his adroit and elegant style, moved his amendment, and resumed his seat under cheers from all sides. Brougham sprang to his feet, full of excitement with the great theme. Members cried, "Divide!

divide!" in deafening tones. But Harry stood firm, lifted his voice above the tempest, and began to roll out long sentences crowded with big thoughts, while Buxton's shouts of "Hear! hear! hear!" finally silenced the clamor, when, his cheers of the matchless eloquence of his colleague becoming contagious, Brougham wound up a great speech amid "thunders of applause."

It has already been stated, that in May, 1832, on motion of Mr. Buxton, a committee was appointed in the Commons, to inquire and report upon the most expedient measures for the extinction of slavery throughout the British dominions. His labors as chairman of this committee, of which Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, and other distinguished statesmen, were members, whose sittings did not terminate till August, were indefatigable, and worthy of the highest praise. His permitting the reins of leaders.h.i.+p in this measure to slip into the hands of the compromising Colonial Secretary, the next spring, was censured by some Abolitionists. But no man strove more earnestly than he to remedy the defects in the ministerial plan. He repeatedly divided the House on amendments, and succeeded in reducing the period of apprentices.h.i.+p one-half. And any ground which he might have lost by the transactions of 1833, was n.o.bly redeemed by his subsequent services in bringing to an end a system, which, at the outset, he had denounced as "unjust in principle, indefensible in policy, and anomalous, unnatural, and unnecessary."

After the abolition of the apprentices.h.i.+p, Mr. Buxton turned his attention to the slave trade. In June, 1839, he inst.i.tuted the "Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilization of Africa,"

and was appointed its chairman. The same year, he brought out an elaborate work on "The Slave Trade and its Remedy," which was followed the next year by an enlarged edition, extending to some 600 pages. It is the most valuable and authentic publication extant on that subject. The facts it detailed, as to the extent of the traffic, astonished all who paid any attention to what Mr. Pitt had denominated "the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted mankind." While for a quarter of a century "the triumphs of humanity in the abolition of the African slave trade" had rounded the periods of orators in the British Senate and on the rock of Plymouth, Mr. Buxton proves that in 1840, and for a long period before, the victims of the traffic were more numerous, and its features more grim and gory than when Clarkson entered upon his philanthropic work in 1786. If Mr. Buxton had done nothing more, during his life, than to open the eyes of deluded Christendom to the present extent of this atrocious piracy, he would be ent.i.tled to the thanks of mankind.

The publication of his volume stimulated the British Government to greater efforts for bringing the traffic to an end. Though his main remedy, the civilization of Africa, showed a comprehensive and benevolent mind, the African expeditions undertaken in accordance with his plan were less successful than he fondly antic.i.p.ated; and many of the best-informed persons became firmly fixed in the opinion, that the only effectual remedy for the slave trade is the complete abolition of slavery itself, and that anything short of this is amelioration, and not extermination. While it is believed that Mr. Buxton never abandoned his favorite plan, yet, till the close of his laborious and philanthropic life, he was the steady friend of all efforts for the overthrow of slavery and the slave trade throughout the world.

Mr. Buxton possessed large wealth, which he liberally devoted to the promotion of benevolent enterprises--had a clear and capacious mind, well stocked with useful knowledge--was ever under the influence of a liberal heart and catholic spirit--and his majestic form, he being about six feet and a half in hight, gave impressive dignity to the lucid style in which he presented his subject, whether pleading for justice and mercy before an adverse House of Commons, or surrounded by applauding thousands in Exeter Hall.

Next to Mr. Buxton, if indeed he was not in advance of him, Mr. ZACHARY MACAULAY exerted as wide an influence in marshaling public sentiment for the victory of 1833-4, as any other person in the kingdom. His services were not of an ostentatious kind, being confined chiefly to the committee room and the editorial chair. Having resided both in Africa and the West Indies, his practical acquaintance with the matters in controversy imparted rare value to his counsels, while his acute and powerful pen was in constant requisition, to prepare reports of committees, memorials to Parliament, pamphlets for general distribution, and articles for the periodical press. The self-sacrificing spirit in which he wore out his life in the cause received additional l.u.s.ter from the rare fact that he coveted none of the glory of his good works.

Mr. JOSEPH STURGE deserves a high place, not only among the Abolitionists, but among the reformers of Great Britain. Having taken an active part in preparing public opinion for negro emanc.i.p.ation, he recorded his protest against the apprentices.h.i.+p. When contradictory statements as to its operation were confusing the English mind, he determined to investigate the matter for himself. Accordingly, in 1836 and 1837 he made a tour of the West Indies. Satisfied of the pernicious character of the scheme, he wrote home, advising an earnest movement for its abolition. On his return, he published the results of his observations--the demand for repeal reverberated through the British Isles--the days of the apprentices.h.i.+p were numbered. To him, more than to any other man, this consummation is attributable. Soon afterward, he conceived the plan of a General Convention to promote the universal abolition of slavery and the slave trade. The result was, "the World's Convention" of 1840, composed of delegates from many nations and both hemispheres, over whose deliberations the patriot Clarkson presided, and which contributed to the overthrow of East Indian slavery, and gave an impulse to the cause throughout the world.

Mr. Sturge has been an a.s.siduous laborer in other fields of reform.

Among the first to embark in the movement for the total repeal of the corn laws, he partic.i.p.ated in it till victory crowned the exertions of its friends. During this controversy, he became thoroughly convinced that a more radical and comprehensive reform was requisite to break up the system of cla.s.s legislation, which bore so heavily on the working ma.s.ses of the country. The Chartist enterprise had arrested his attention and enlisted his sympathies from its beginning. A firm believer in the second, if not the first line of Mackay--

"Cannon b.a.l.l.s may aid the Truth, But Thought's a weapon stronger"--

he could not countenance the violent measures of some leading Chartists, and would fain infuse into their counsels a more pacific spirit.

Advocating their cardinal doctrines, but wis.h.i.+ng to base his opinions on actual observation and experiment, he visited the United States in 1841, to inquire into the working of universal suffrage, voting by ballot, equal representation, and frequent elections. Returning to England, he published the results of his investigations, which had convinced him of the practicability of applying the main features of our Congressional system of representation and election to the House of Commons. At a meeting of anti-corn law deputies, held at Manchester, in November, after the business for which they had a.s.sembled was finished, Mr. S.

brought forward the subject of "complete suffrage." His lucid and practical views begat a general desire among the deputies for the commencement of a movement for a thorough reform in Parliament. In December following he issued a "Declaration," embracing the outlines of his plan, which ultimately drew to his views a portion of the Chartists, who, throwing off the old name, united with others in adopting that of Complete Suffragists.

In February, 1842, a meeting of delegates was held in London, on the call of Mr. Sturge, cotemporaneously with an immense anti-corn law convention, which had a.s.sembled to protest against Mr. Peel's proposed new law. After a full discussion, in which many members of the latter convention partic.i.p.ated, the basis was laid for a union between the Corn-Law Repealers and the Complete Suffragists. In April following, a conference was held in Birmingham, mainly through his influence, composed of delegates from England, Scotland, and Ireland. The proceedings of this important body, over which Mr. Sturge presided, gave new energy to the movement commenced at the previous meeting in London.

"_The National Complete Suffrage Union_" was formed by this conference, and Mr. Sturge was chosen its first President. In the course of this year a vacancy happened in the representation of Nottingham, a town containing some four thousand electors. Mr. Sturge was requested to stand as the Radical candidate, merely as an experiment, no one expecting him to succeed. In his address to the electors, he avowed himself in favor of universal suffrage, the severance of the Church from the State, and the total repeal of the corn laws; declared he would not spend a farthing in electioneering purposes, (i. e., bribing and treating,) nor countenance any efforts in his behalf, not sanctioned by the precepts of morality; and urged his friends to employ only such measures, during the canva.s.s, as would make defeat honorable, and add l.u.s.ter to victory. His opponent, Mr. Walter, the proprietor of the London Times, stimulated the exertions of his supporters with a purse of 15,000. At the close of the poll, Mr. Sturge lacked but seventy-four votes of an election. He would have succeeded, but for the extensive bribery and intimidation of his opponent, who, on this account, was unseated on the rea.s.sembling of Parliament.

During the last six years, Mr. Sturge has devoted himself, with his characteristic ability, zeal, and munificence, to the promotion of general education, complete suffrage, church reform, corn-law repeal, slave-trade extermination, universal peace, and cognate reforms.

On the summoning of a new Parliament, in 1847, he reluctantly consented to contest Leeds. In the course of his speech at the hustings, his proposer, the venerable Edward Baines, who had long represented the town, said: "I have to propose for your choice, as one of your representatives in Parliament, my friend and your friend, the friend of his country and of the human race, Joseph Sturge. With his principles you are well acquainted. They are the principles of liberty, of humanity, of economy, of equal rights, of freedom of trade and of thought, of voluntary education, of universal peace, and of justice to all mankind, of whatever color and of whatever clime. There are in Parliament an abundance of merchants, of manufacturers, of bankers, of lawyers, of soldiers, of sailors, of ecclesiastical patrons, of peers, and of bishops; but there is a deplorable deficiency of such men as Joseph Sturge." In his address to the electors, Mr. Sturge gave a thorough exposition of his political views, in the face of frowning Whigs and hissing Tories, both of whom brought forward candidates, and made him the object of their common hostility. After a hot contest, he was barely defeated by the concentration of a part of the Tory votes upon one of the Whig candidates; but the result was a moral triumph for Mr. Sturge and his cause.

Mr. Sturge is a member of the Society of Friends, and his beneficent life and amiable deportment are a beautiful embodiment of the principles of that sect. Till within a few years, he was extensively engaged in the corn trade, and has long been one of the most wealthy and influential citizens of Birmingham. Not satisfied with devoting liberal sums and remnants of time to philanthropic objects, he withdrew from a profitable mercantile connection, that he might consecrate all his energies to the advancement of civil and religious liberty. With no pretensions to literary or oratorical excellence, he is able to express his clear and vigorous ideas with terseness and point, both with pen and tongue. His plans, like his mind, are eminently practical; and he goes straight to the subject-matter, stripping off the husk, somewhat regardless of its texture and hue, and piercing at once to the kernel. His mercantile training has given him business habits of the first order, making him as efficient in executing plans as he is shrewd in their formation. A little apt to push aside, not to say push over, obtuseness and sluggishness, yet he mingles his unostentatious activity with such purity of intention and suavity of manner, as not to offend colder and more timid natures, while doing in a day what would occupy a month in their hands. Should he ever enter the House of Commons, he would be found, not among its brilliant, but certainly among its most useful members.

In this chapter it would be impossible to name all who bore a prominent part in the cause now under review. The Society of Friends alone kept an army in the field during the war. And no soldiers did better service than the household troops of George Fox. I may name William Allen, to whose many virtues the Duke of Kent gave the highest evidence, by appointing him one of the guardians of his daughter Victoria--and James Cropper, the munificent Liverpool merchant--and Joseph and Samuel Gurney, the London bankers, the former of whom traveled over the Continent to investigate the state of its prisons, and made the tour of the West Indies, to examine into the condition of the emanc.i.p.ated negroes--and George William Alexander, who has visited France, Denmark, Holland, and Spain, to arouse them to the duty of abolis.h.i.+ng slavery.

I can only allude to Thomas Pringle, one of England's sweetest and most graceful poets, who officiated as Secretary of the London Anti-Slavery Society in its infancy, its vigor, and its victory--and Captain Charles Stuart, one of the purest and bravest of mankind, whose voice and pen were sacred to Freedom--and John Scoble, who twice visited the West Indies, and whose chaste oratory on the platform, and terse productions as Secretary of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society were of signal service to the cause. Of George Thompson, whom Lord Brougham p.r.o.nounced one of the most eloquent men either in or out of Parliament, I shall speak at greater length, in connection with the abolition of East Indian Slavery.

I will close this chapter by briefly noticing a few of the many clergymen who rendered important services to the Anti-Slavery cause.

North of the Tweed, was Rev. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., of Edinburgh, a leading minister of the Kirk of Scotland. He has been dead several years. Posthumous fame tells wondrous tales of his overpowering eloquence. The reports of his speeches, which I have read, show him to have been a son of thunder. He did not polish the angles of his sentences so much as Dr. Chalmers, but he possessed in large measure the comprehensive views, argumentative power, and splendid imagination, which distinguished that great divine; while, in directness and point, and ability to arouse and sway the pa.s.sions of men, he undoubtedly excelled him. Robert Hall never said of Andrew Thomson, that he was a ma.s.sive door, always turning on its hinges, but never moving onward. A speech of three hours length, delivered by him, in 1830, before the Edinburgh Anti-Slavery Society, in vindication of the principle of immediate as opposed to gradual abolition, and which was widely published, brought over the great body of Scottish Abolitionists to the new doctrine, chiefly through its intrinsic merits, partly, no doubt, because of the high standing of the orator. Its influence crossed the Border, and among its English converts was the celebrated Mr. George Thompson, who soon afterward became a lecturing agent of the London Committee.

The perfect opposite of Dr. Thomson, was the eminent dissenting minister, Rev. RALPH WARDLAW, D.D., of Glasgow. His tall person is the fitting embodiment of his large mind; and his benignant countenance is the index of the purity of his heart. No one ever attended his chapel without p.r.o.nouncing him a model for the pulpit. One of the best readers that ever opened the sacred Volume, his mellow voice, musical cadence, and chaste delivery, give to the precept or parable he has selected for the exercise a force and reality that never appeared to the hearer before. And his sermon--how harmoniously do strength and simplicity blend, to give vigor and transparency to the argument; and how his felicitous similes and pointed tropes ill.u.s.trate and adorn it, without confusing the reason or sending off the fancy in a chase after mere imagery.

But, though justly celebrated as a preacher and a divine, he is more widely known for his able advocacy of Voluntaryism, in opposition to Church Establishments, his early and steady services in behalf of negro emanc.i.p.ation, and his devotion to the general cause of civil and religious liberty. Probably no chapel in Scotland has opened its doors to so many secular meetings for the improvement of the human race as his; and usually the venerable pastor is present to give his countenance and voice to the work.

We cannot linger longer on Scottish ground; though if we did, we should certainly be attracted by the erect form and elastic step of Rev. JOHN RITCHIE, D.D., of Edinburgh, whose Quaker-cut coat, ample white cravat, jaunty hat, and dangling cl.u.s.ter of watch-seals, would make you a.s.sign him now to members.h.i.+p in the Society of Friends, and then to members.h.i.+p in some sporting club, but never to his proper place, at the head of the Secession Church of Scotland. He is an old soldier in the ranks of Freedom; has fought many a hard battle with Negro Slavery and the State Church: is an ardent free trader, universal suffragist, and, in a word, a thorough radical reformer, who can instruct the reason or arouse the feelings of an auditory with capital effect.

We will hasten to English ground, and spend a few moments with a clergyman who, in mental characteristics and oratorical peculiarities, is a cross of the thunder of Dr. Thomson, and the suns.h.i.+ne of Dr.