retreat of the billows.  He was not inclined to let the anti-Abolition agitation subside so soon, before it had carried on its flood Abolition principles to wider fields and more abundant harvests in the republic.  Anxious lest the cat-like temper of the populace was falling into indifference and apathy, he and his disciples took occasion to prod it into renewed wakefulness and activity.  The instruments used for this purpose were anti-slavery meetings and the sharp goad of his Liberator editorials.  The city was possessed with the demon of slavery, and its foaming at the mouth was the best of all signs that the Abolition exorcism was working effectively.  So, in between the glittering teeth and the terrible paws was thrust the maddening goad, and up sprang the mighty beast horrible to behold.

One of these meetings was the anniversary of the formation of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society which fell on October 14th.  The ladies issued their notice, engaged a hall, and invited George Thompson to address them.  Now the foreign emissary was particularly exasperating to Boston sensibility on the subject of slavery.  He was the veritable red rag to the pro-slavery bull.  The public announcement, therefore, that he was to speak in the city threw the public mind into violent agitation.  The Gazette and the Courier augmented the excitement by the recklessness with which they denounced the proposed meeting, the former promising to Thompson a lynching, while the latter endeavored to involve his associates who were to the “manner born” in the popular outbreak, which was confidently predicted in case the “foreign vagrant” wagged his tongue at the time appointed.

Notwithstanding the rage of press and people the meeting was postponed through no willingness on the part of the ladies, but because of the panic of the owners of the hall lest their property should be damaged or destroyed in case of a riot.  The ladies, thereupon, appointed three o’clock in the afternoon of October 21st as the time, and the hall adjoining the Anti-Slavery Office, at 46 Washington street, as the place where they would hold their adjourned meeting.  This time they made no mention of Mr. Thompson’s addressing them, merely announcing several addresses.  In fact, an address from Mr. Thompson, in view of the squally outlook, was not deemed expedient.  To provide against accidents and disasters, he left the city on the day before the meeting.  But this his enemies did not know.  They confidently expected that he was to be one of the speakers.  An inflammatory handbill distributed on the streets at noon of the 21st seemed to leave no doubt of this circumstance in the pro-slavery portion of the city.

The handbill referred to ran as follows: 

    THOMPSON,

    THE ABOLITIONIST!