in Exeter Hall pointed the finger of scorn at America and made her a by-word and a hissing in the ears of Englishmen, was it not at a meeting got up to further the designs of this “misguided young gentlemen who has just returned from England whither he has recently been for the sole purpose as it would seem [to the Commercial Advertiser] of traducing the people and institutions of his own country.”  Had he not caught up and echoed back the hissing thunder of the great Irish orator:—­“Shame on the American Slaveholders!  Base wretches should we shout in chorus—­base wretches, how dare you profane the temple of national freedom, the sacred fane of Republican rites, with the presence and the sufferings of human beings in chains and slavery!”

The noise of these treasons on a foreign shore, “deafening the sound of the westerly wave, and riding against the blast as thunder goes,” to borrow O’Connell’s graphic and grandiose phrases, had reached the country in advance of Mr. Garrison.  The national sensitiveness was naturally enough stung to the quick.  Here is a pestilent fellow who is not content with disturbing the peace of the Union with his new fanaticism, but must needs presume to make the dear Union odious before the world as well.  And his return, what is it to be but the signal for increased agitation on the slavery question.  The conquering hero comes and his fanatical followers salute him forthwith with a new anti-slavery society, which means a fresh instrument in his hands to stir up strife between the North and the South.  “Are we tamely to look on, and see this most dangerous species of fanaticism extending itself through society?” shrieked on the morning of Mr. Garrison’s arrival in New York Harbor, the malignant editor of the Courier and Enquirer.

The pro-slavery and lawless elements of the city were not slow to take the cue given by metropolitan papers, and to do the duty of patriots upon their country’s enemies.  Arthur Tappen and his anti-slavery associates outwitted these patriotic gentlemen, who attended in a body at Clinton Hall on the evening of October 2, 1833, to perform the aforesaid duty of patriots, while the objects of their attention were convened at Chatham Street Chapel and organizing their new fanaticism.  The mob flew wide of its mark a second time, for when later in the evening it began a serenade more expressive than musical before the entrance to the little chapel on Chatham street the members of the society “folded their tents like the Arabs and as silently stole away.”  The Abolitionists accomplished their design and eluded their enemies at the same time.  But the significance of the riotous demonstration went not unobserved by them and their newly arrived leader.  It was plain from that night that if the spirit of Abolitionism had risen, the spirit of persecution had risen also.