J. Cutts Smith and Hamlett Bates, in the facts as stated by Knapp, for whom they offered to serve as a finance committee. On the same sheet containing the circular and Knapp's autographic letter of transmission, Mr. Garrison wrote thus to his brother-in-law: W. L. Garrison to G. W. Benson, at Northampton, Mass. CAMBRIDGEPORT, Dec. 17, 1841. - You will see, by the accompanying Circular, what mischief is brewing, and what a hostile position is assumed toward me, the Liberator Committee, and the Massachusetts A. S. Society, by my old, erring, and misguided friend Knapp, and his more crafty and malignant abettors to wit, Smith, Bates,1 and Bishop. I have every reason to believe that it was drawn up by Bishop, and that it has been sent to a great number of persons in all parts of the country. A copy was sent to our venerable friend Seth Sprague, at Duxbury (the superscription being in Bishop's handwriting), who, thinking I might not have seen it, promptly and kindly forwarded it to me, with the following characteristic lines: 2 "Respected Friend - I received the enclosed Circular, a few days since, by mail; and although I think it most likely that you are informed that it is in circulation, yet it is possible that you may not. I see that there is another storm brewing. If the devil was ever chained, certainly he has been let loose on the old Massachusetts A. S. Society. "Yours with much respect, SETH SPRAGUE." Thus far, we have not deemed it expedient to take any notice of the Circular, in the Liberator. The committee will probably wait until the first number of the "true" (!!) Liberator shall have made its appearance, when it will, doubtless, be necessary for them to make a calm and plain statement of the facts in the case. This, of course, will suffice to satisfy all candid and honorable minds; for nothing can be more absurd, or more untrue 1 A former clerk in the Anti-Slavery Office. 2 Joel Prentiss Bishop had likewise been a clerk in the Anti-Slavery Office, and took advantage of Collins's absence to attack the office accounts (Lib. 11:2, 23), and to play into the hands of New Organization. He presently left the Old (Lib. 11: 99). He was associated with Torrey in his Vigilance Committee (ante, p. 37). He was admitted to the bar while a student in Stanton's office (Stanton's 'Random Recollections,' 2d ed., p. 65), and became the author of many well-known legal treatises. CHAP. I. 1841. MS. J. Cutts Smith (ante, 1:278). 1841. J. P. Bishop. (as you well know), than the charges brought against them and these things move me." You will doubtless be anxious to know what is Knapp's prospect of success in the publication of his new paper. I have no means of knowing; but take it for granted that, among the numerous enemies of the anti-slavery cause in general, of the Massachusetts A. S. Society in particular, of the Liberator, and of myself (slavery, pro-slavery, new organization, and priestcraft, all combined), he will not find it a very difficult matter to obtain an amount of funds sufficient to enable him to publish several numbers of the scandalous publication. The editing of the paper will be done, I presume, by Bishop. As soon as the paper is issued, I will send you a copy. The receipts of the Liberator for the present year will fall short of its expenses to the amount of about $500. This sum will probably be made up by the kindness of friends. If you can obtain any new subscribers for the new year in your region, or any one else, send their names along as a New Year's present.1 Bishop, as was expected, filled the entire first page of the first number of Knapp's Liberator2 with his own Ante, p. 39. quarrel with the Massachusetts Board in regard to Collins's accounts. Smith and Bates followed with intended corroborations of the truth of Knapp's circular, which was here reprinted. Knapp had little to say in his own behalf, being the merest tool of his false friends; but there were many anonymous communications aimed at Mr. Garrison and the Board. 1 Mr. Garrison wrote to Mr. Benson on January 7, 1841 (MS.), that in the twelvemonth the Liberator had lost nearly five hundred subscribers net, and cut off two or three hundred delinquents. Once firm friends had ordered the paper stopped. "The Sabbath Convention has been more than they could tolerate; and to save the formal observance of the first day of the week, they are willing that slavery should be perpetuated." 2 Dated Boston, Saturday, Jan. 8, 1842. The printed page was about 94 x 142 inches. No subscription price was named, nor any regular date of publication. MS. Feb. E. Pease to 26, 1842, Wendell MS. May 15, 1842; The solitary issue of this "paper" being industriously circulated in England by Capt. Charles Stuart, Mr. Garrison was induced to give a very minute account of his entire business relations with Knapp, in a long letter to Elizabeth Pease, from which an extract has been already ante, 2:331. made. The decisive fact appears, that, in less than three months after the transfer had been made, "Mr. Knapp failed in business, and conveyed all the property in his hands to his creditors," including his half-interest in the subscription-list of the Liberator. In the fall of 1841, Mr. Ellis Gray Loring effected a purchase of this interest for the sum of $25, in order to rid the paper of all embarrassment from a divided ownership. The refusal of this offer would have led to the issue of a new paper, on January 1, 1842, with the title of Garrison's Liberator; and the creditors, being informed of this, gladly consented to make a legal transfer to Mr. Garrison. Knapp's overtures to buy back his interest were of course not entertained. "After we separated," continues Mr. Garrison, in reference to the arrangement of 1839-1840, "I endeavored to stimulate Mr. Knapp to active exertions to retrieve his character, and promised to exert all my influence to aid him, if he would lead a sober and industrious life. I pointed out to him a mode in which I felt certain that he could do well for himself; and I assured him that all my friends were his friends, who would cheerfully contribute to his relief, provided he would only respect himself, and evince a disposition to work for a livelihood. Instead of listening to this advice, or to the friendly Suggestions of others, he gave himself up to idleness, the use of strong drink, and even to gambling-often wandering about, not knowing where to find a place of rest at night—leaving his poor wife a prey to grief and shame-and making a complete wreck of himself. For a number of weeks I sheltered him and his wife under my roof-assisted him in other respects-and collected for him between thirty and forty dollars, from a few friends in a distant place; for, kindly disposed as were the anti-slavery friends in this region toward him, it was in vain to solicit aid from them so long as he gave himself to the intoxicating bowl and the gambling table. You perceive what re Oct. 22, 1841; Lib. 12:3. MS. May 15, 1842, to E. Pease. CHAP. I. 1841. Lib. 12:3. Lib. 12:205, etc. Lib. 11:212; p. 134. turns he has made for my kindness; but my heart yearns over him, and I cannot reproach him.” No direct notice was taken of the circular, or of Knapp's publication, in the Liberator; but the simple facts of the final transfer were stated by the financial committee on renewing their trust for the twelfth volume. Amid all the vexatious cares of this year 1841, Mr. Garrison's health and spirits were at their height. With his verse the Liberator volume had opened, and with his verse it closed; the last half being freely sprinkled with sonnets, lyrics, and other forms from the editor's active muse. To the new volume of the Liberty Bell he contributed "The Song of the Abolitionist," which, to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne," was sung at countless gatherings in hall and grove for twenty years. A verse or two shall close the present chapter: I am an Abolitionist! I glory in the name; Though now by Slavery's minions hissed, And covered o'er with shame: It is a spell of light and power I am an Abolitionist! Then urge me not to pause, For joyfully do I enlist In Freedom's sacred cause: A nobler strife the world ne'er saw, Th' enslaved to disenthrall; I am a soldier for the war, Whatever may befall! I am an Abolitionist – Oppression's deadly foe; In God's great strength will I resist, In God's great name do I demand, That peace and joy may fill the land, CHAPTER II. THE IRISH ADDRESS.-1842. EMOND, landing in Boston in December, 1841, Dec. 21; Lib. 11:207. brought among his undutiable baggage a terse Address of the Irish People to their Countrymen and Lib. 12: 39. Countrywomen in America on the subject of slavery. It exhorted them to treat the colored people as equals and brethren, and to unite everywhere with the abolitionists. Sixty thousand names were appended,1 Daniel O'Connell's at the head, as Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of Dublin, with Theobald Mathew's close by. hopes were entertained of its effect on the Irish-American citizen and voter. George Bradburn wrote from Lowell to Francis Jackson: Great Ante, 2:380. "What is to be done with that mammoth Address from Ireland? I know it is to be rolled into the Annual Meeting, but is that to be the end of it? Might not the Address, with a few of its signatures, including O'Connell's, Father Mathew's, and some of the priests' and other dignitaries', be lithographed? The mere sight of those names, or facsimiles of them, rather, and especially the autographs of them, would perhaps more powerfully affect the Irish among us than all the lectures we could deliver to them, were they never so willing to hear. It is a great object, a very great object, to enlist the Irish in our cause. There are five thousand of them in this small city. Might not one be almost sure of winning them over to the cause of humanity, could one but go before them with that big Address on his shoulders? I have thought I would like to try the experiment, after our Annual Meeting, and would the more willingly do so from having learned, since coming hither, that 1 Ten thousand more were subsequently added (Lib. 12: 63). MS. Jan. |