denunciatory, and rash, dealing their blows alike among friends and foes. Whoever does not see the subject as they do, is blacked and lampooned without mercy. Thus good men keep aloof, and dare not trust themselves in company with those who have more zeal than judgment, and who are ready to call down fire upon every head which does not wear the same distinctive badge with themselves. One meeting which I attended was taken up in trying to prove that Sabbath schools, as conducted in England, are promotive of crime; and statistics were introduced to show how large a proportion of criminals have ever been connected with these institutions. The impression made on my mind was, that temperance men must exhibit a more lovely spirit, ere their principles can prevail to any great

extent.

"

I think, also, that much of the anti-slavery of England is spurious. Englishmen are loud in their de nunciation of our national sin, and almost every week the walls of Exeter Hall ring with some declamation upon the wrongs of American bondage. Well, it is bad enough, earth and heaven knows. No speech can set it forth in a more odious light than it deIt is the sum of all villainies," and no man has a right to defend it. But with the anti-slavery of England I have no patience. It often consists of no a curious compound of national spleen and spite, prejudice and revenge. The speeches which are made upon the subject are generally in a taunting, bitter spirit, which no American, however strongly he may be disposed to oppose slavery, can but resent. The citizen of the States is expected, when he makes a speech, to cast some slur back upon his country; and if he does not do it, he is not applauded. Ministers

are treated with disrespect, and shut out of pulpits; statesmen are vexed and plagued by remarks founded on an entire misapprehension of the condition of things in this country, and every means taken to lacerate the feelings of those who are here the sincere friends of freedom. A minister of London said to me one day, "You will preach for me to-morrow, brother E., will you not?" "Yes, if you desire it." "But understand," he added, "I invite you on condition that you have no love of the fugitive slave law, and no fellowship with those who have." "I shall not preach for you,” I replied, "on any such conditions. You know me to be from a free state, and opposed to slavery; and your 'condition' is a thrust at my country. I shall not preach for you." He apologized and argued; but I would not consent. Perhaps I exhibited some Yankee obstinacy; but I could not help it. I told him plainly that the flings at our nation come with ill grace from England, by whom the curse of slavery came upon us; from England, whose colonies we were when it was introduced; by whom, for years, until it became too strong to be managed, it was sustained; a nation whose hands are scarcely washed from its stains, and whose suffering poor are calling for redress in vain.

One night, I attended an anti-slavery meeting in Freemasons' Hall. Several speakers were introduced, all of whom came down upon America with a vengeance. One of the speakers asked, "What can Britons do to alleviate the woes of slaves in the States?" When he had taken his seat, Horace Greeley was introduced, who went into the subject in a fine style. In a very deliberate manner, and yet in a way that they could not misunderstand, he told them to be consistent, redress the wrongs of their own suffering poor, and come

fact that he was no copper-color, half-and-half man, →→ I use his very words, but a real jet black. Thus applauding him, he shook him by the hand, and flung up his arms, and cried, "England and Africa forev er!" No child who had received a new toy could be more pleased than was this aged minister in having a negro to pet and flatter. And the whole congregation enjoyed it much. It gave them an admirable opportunity to vent their spleen at our country, and they could not resist the temptation to improve it.

At the close of the meeting, this negro was called upon to speak. He arose completely intoxicated with the praise he had received. The poor fellow scarcely knew which way to turn, or how to act, and his whole speech was one of the most ridiculous harangues I ever heard. He informed the audience, what they sincerely desired to hear, that there was no liberty, and not a single freeman, in America. To one who was a stranger to our institutions, he would have given the impression that we were a nation whose only product was the bowie-knife, and whose only glory was human slavery. But he could not long refrain from speaking of himself, even to abuse our country; and he began to eulogize his own career, and exult in the favor which he had received from the people of England. "Why," said he, "when the reverend gentleman took me by the hand, my heart swelled up as big as a good fat ox." Thus he continued some fifteen minutes in a strain of foolishness and abuse, which was received by one of the finest audiences ever collected in the world with shouts of approbation. While relating some fact connected with his past experience, he wished to mention something which he said to his wife. "Says I, mothThen checking himself, he remarked, "When

er —”

we wish to speak to our wives in my country, we say 'mother; and I adopted this language, not that I did not love her enough to say my dear,' as you do here, but it is a way we have, you know."

The speech of which the above is a specimen closed with the following poetical effusion:

"Honor to the brave,

Freedom to the slave,
Success to British liberty,

And God bless Queen Victoria."

I introduce this account not to ridicule the negro, but to show that British anti-slavery, instead of being a pure desire to give freedom to the enslaved and liberty to the oppressed, is mixed up with a very large preponderance of national prejudice and spleen, which finds vent through this channel; and an Exeter Hall audience will put up with and rapturously applaud any speech, and reprint it with every token of admiration and approbation, however destitute it may be of wit and common sense, if it only gives an occasion for John Bull to "put his flippers into the peepers" of Brother Jonathan, as the young man classically remarked to me in the gin palace.

There is one great barrier to all reform in England, and that is the unhallowed caste which exists between the two extremes of society. I was reminded every day, while I was in England, of the caste of color which exists in America, and which Englishmen appear to view, and which, indeed, every man should view, with feelings of righteous abhorrence. But the caste of rank and wealth is as broad, and deep, and destructive as is the caste of color here. An English nobleman would have his daughter associate with, or unite