hear!] Secondly, by persuading slaveholders of the wrong they commit; but this would have little effect so long as they bought their cotton. [Hear, hear!] And the third and most feasible way was, by making slave labor unprofitable, as compared with free labor. [Hear!] When the Chinese first began to emigrate to California, it was predicted that slavery would be ‘run out’ that way.  He hoped it might be so. [Cheers.] The reverend gentleman then reverted to his previous visit to this country, seventeen years ago, and described the rapid strides which had been made in the work of education—­especially the education of the poor—­in the interval.  It was most gratifying to him, and more easily seen by him than it would be by us, with whom the change had been gradual.  He had been told in America that the English abolitionists were prompted by jealousy of America, but he had found that to be false.  The Christian feeling which had dictated efforts on behalf of ragged schools and factory children, and the welfare of the poor and distressed of every kind, had caused the same Christian hearts to throb for the American slave.  It was that Christian philanthropy which received all men as brethren—­children of the same father, and therefore he had great hopes of success. [Cheers.]”

* * * * *

My remarks on the cotton business of Britain were made with entire sincerity, and a single-hearted desire to promote the antislavery cause.  They are sentiments which I had long entertained, and which I had taken every opportunity to express with the utmost freedom from the time of my first landing in Liverpool, the great cotton mart of England, and where, if any where, they might be supposed capable of giving offence; yet no exception was taken to them, so far as I know, till delivered in Exeter Hall.  There they were heard by some with surprise, and by others with extreme displeasure.  I was even called proslavery, and ranked with Mrs. Julia Tyler, for frankly speaking the truth, under circumstances of great temptation to ignore it.

Still I have the satisfaction of knowing that both my views and my motives were rightly understood and properly appreciated by large-hearted and clear-headed philanthropists, like the Earl of Shaftesbury and Joseph Sturge, and very fairly represented and commented upon by such religious and secular papers as the Christian Times, the British Banner, the London Daily News and Chronicle; and even the thundering political Times seemed disposed, in a half-sarcastic way, to admit that I was more than half right.