FOOTNOTES:

(signature) William D. Snow(signature) William D. Snow

Richmond, Dec. 1st, 1853.

[7]"Ye ChristianBondouswho of feeling boast!"Unable in the whole range of my vernacular, to find an epithet sufficiently expressive to enunciate the aggravated contempt which all feel for that pseudonymous class of philanthropists, who flauntingly parade a pompous sympathy with popular and distant distresses, but studiously cultivate a coarse ignorance of, and hauteur to, the Greeks, which "are at the door," I have had recource to the Metonymy,Bondou, as rendered mournfully significant through the melancholy fate of the illustrious Houghton.—VideReport African Discovery Society.[8]"Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire."Napoleon in his protest to Lord Bathurst, provoked by the petty tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe, said of the "Proscriptions," and (by negative inference) in extenuation of them, that they "were made with the blood yet fresh upon the sword." A sentence, which, falling from the lips of one of the most imperturbably cool and calculating of mankind, under circumstances superinducing peculiar reflection on every word uttered, cannot but come with the force of a whole volume of excoriative evidence against the demoralization of war, even upon the most abstracted and elevated natures.—VideLetters of Montholon and Las Cases.[9]"Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate."Agis, King of Lacedemon and colleague of Leonidas, was a youth of singular purity and promise. Aiming to correct the abuses which had crept into the Spartan polity, he introduced regenerative laws. Among others, one for the equalization of property, and as an example of disinterested liberality, shared his estate with the community. Unappreciated by the degenerated Senate however, he was deposed, and, with his whole family, strangled by order of the ingrate State.—Edin. Encyc.It is said that when Jugurtha was led before the ear of the conquerer, he lost his senses. After the triumph he was thrown into prison, where, whilst they were in haste to strip him, some tore his robes off his back, and others, catching eagerly at his pendants, pulled off the tips of his ears with them. When he was thrust down naked into the dungeon, all wild and confused, he said, with a frantic smile, "Heavens! how cold is this bath of yours!" There struggling for six days with starvation, and to the last hour laboring for the preservation of his life, he came to his end.—Plut. Cai. Mar.[10]"Breathes the warm odor which thegirgirbears,"The girgir, or thegeshe el aube, a species of flowering grass. Piercing, fragrant, and grateful in its odor, it operates not unlike a mild stimulant, when respired for any length of time, and is found chiefly near the borders of small streams and in the vicinage of the Tassada.—Lyn. Gui. and Soud.[11]"Where browse thefechoand the dun-gazelle."Among the wild animals are prodigious numbers of the vari-colored species of the gazelle, the bohur sassa, fecho, and madoqua. They are extremely numerous in the provinces depopulatedby war and slavery, enjoying the wild oats of the deserted hamlets without fear of molestation from a returning population.—Notes on Central Africa.[12]"And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules,Gazed at the stars which stud yon tender blue,And hoped and deemed the cheat of death untrue."Though Socrates and Plato, particularly the former, are generally admitted by writers of authority, among whom, indeed, are Polycarpe, Chrysotom, and Eusebius, to have in a mannersuspectedrather than believed, the immortality of the soul; yet we have no evidence of their ever having, by the finest process of ratiocination, so thoroughly convinced themselves as to introduce it generally as a tenable thesis on the portico. A beautiful thread of implicit belief and fervent hope, of after life, assimilating to the hunting-ground of our own American Indians, and though sensuous still, a step far in advance of the black void of ancient philosophy, has always run through the higher mythologies of the Negro. So notorious, indeed, was the fact among early Christians, that that ubiquitous riddle, "Prestor John," was, by believers, regarded as having alocalein Central Africa; while Henry of Portugal actually despatched two ambassadors, Corvilla and Payvan, to a rumored Christian court, south of the Sahara.—Edin. Encyc. Early Chris. His. Port.[13]"Yet supple sophist to a plastic mind,Sees gods in woods, and spirits in the wind."The imagination of the African, like his musical genius, which extracts surprising harmony from the rudest of sources, the clapping of hands, the clanking of chains, the resonance of lasso wood, and perforated shells, seems to invest everything with a resident spirit of peculiar power. Accordingly, his mythologies are most numerous and poetical—his entire catalogue of superior gods alone, embracing a more extended length than the Assyro-Babylon Alphabet, with its three hundred letters.[14]"The vengeful causes and the deed forgot."All travellers agree in the facile ductility and inertia-like amiability of the native African character.—Brewsteron Africa.[15]"The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew."The negro race is, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species. Their infancy and youth are singularly happy. The parents are passionately fond of their children.—Goldbury'sTravels."Strike me," said my attendant, "but do not curse my mother." The same sentiment I found universally to prevail.Some of the first lessons in which the Mandings women instruct their children is thepractice of truth. It was the only consolation for a negro mother, whose son had been murdered by the Moors, that "the boy had never told a lie."—Park'sTravels.[16]"With all the father sees each form retire,A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire.""Or led the combat, bold without a plan,An artless savage, but a fearless man."Campbell.[17]"Till lured by wealth the hardy Portuguese,Sought the green waters of his Eastern seas,And venturous nations more excursive grown,Pierced his glad coast from radiant zone to zone."Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese nobleman, was the first to discover a maritime passage to the Indies; unless, perhaps, we credit the improbable achievement of the Phœnicians, related by Herodotus as occurring, 604b.c.De Gama doubled the cape in 1498, explored the eastern shores as far as Melinda, in Zanguebar, and sailing thence arrived at Calcutta in May. This expedition, second to none in its results, save that of Columbus six years before, drew the attention of all Europe. Whole nations became actuated by the same enthusiasm, and private companies of merchants sent out whole fleets on voyages of discovery, scouring the entire coast from Cape Verd to Gaudfui, and discovering the Mascharenhas and most of the islands of the Ethiopean Archipelago.[18]"Cheats his own nature and now generous grown,Dispenses realms and empires not his own."Charles V. granted a patentto one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right to import four thousand negroes!—Hist. Slavery.The crime of havingfirstrecommended the importation of African slaves into America,is due to the Flemish nobility, who obtained a monopoly of four thousand negroes, which they sold to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats.—Life of Cardinal Ximenes.They (the Genoese) were the first to bring into a regular form, that commerce for slaves, between Africa and America, which has since grown to such an amazing extent.—Robertson.[19]"Too warmly generous and dearly true,The simple black," &c.It will remain an indelible reproach on the name of Europeans, that for more than three centuries their intercourse with the Africans has only tended to destroy their happiness and debase their character.—Edin. Ency.[20]"Now laughs the stranger at their anguished throes."The arts of the slave-merchant have inflamed the hostility of their various tribes, and heightened their ferocity by sedulously increasing their wars.—Ibid.[21]"By specious creeds and sophists darkly taught."Hamlet's advice to his offending mother;—"Assume a virtue, tho' you have it not."Adding hypocrisy to avowed unworthiness, was the acknowledged injunction of the church, wherever and whenever she participated in secular affairs, with a view of emolument. For a peculiar illustration of this favorite doctrine, see Clement VI.'s edict, when, in virtue of the right arrogated by the holy seeto dispose of all countries belonging to the heathen, he erected (1344) the Canaries into a kingdom, and disposed of them to Lewis de la Corda, a prince of Castile.[22]"Or bolder still on fancy's fiery wing."That I do not exaggerate thebelle lettresand classical accomplishments of at least two of the "chattels" of the "peculiar institution," in the lines following the above, see "Poems written by Rosa and Maria,"propertyof South Carolina, and published in 1834.[23]"HearLoxianmurmurs in Rhodolphe's caves."Loxian is a name frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers and is met with, more than once, in the "Chœphoræ of Eschylus."—Campbell.Euripides mentions it three times, and Sophocles twice, its euphony recommends it more than any other name of the fair-haired god.[24]"And in the march of nations led thevan."Campbell

"Ye ChristianBondouswho of feeling boast!"

Unable in the whole range of my vernacular, to find an epithet sufficiently expressive to enunciate the aggravated contempt which all feel for that pseudonymous class of philanthropists, who flauntingly parade a pompous sympathy with popular and distant distresses, but studiously cultivate a coarse ignorance of, and hauteur to, the Greeks, which "are at the door," I have had recource to the Metonymy,Bondou, as rendered mournfully significant through the melancholy fate of the illustrious Houghton.—VideReport African Discovery Society.

[8]"Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire."Napoleon in his protest to Lord Bathurst, provoked by the petty tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe, said of the "Proscriptions," and (by negative inference) in extenuation of them, that they "were made with the blood yet fresh upon the sword." A sentence, which, falling from the lips of one of the most imperturbably cool and calculating of mankind, under circumstances superinducing peculiar reflection on every word uttered, cannot but come with the force of a whole volume of excoriative evidence against the demoralization of war, even upon the most abstracted and elevated natures.—VideLetters of Montholon and Las Cases.

"Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire."

Napoleon in his protest to Lord Bathurst, provoked by the petty tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe, said of the "Proscriptions," and (by negative inference) in extenuation of them, that they "were made with the blood yet fresh upon the sword." A sentence, which, falling from the lips of one of the most imperturbably cool and calculating of mankind, under circumstances superinducing peculiar reflection on every word uttered, cannot but come with the force of a whole volume of excoriative evidence against the demoralization of war, even upon the most abstracted and elevated natures.—VideLetters of Montholon and Las Cases.

[9]"Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate."Agis, King of Lacedemon and colleague of Leonidas, was a youth of singular purity and promise. Aiming to correct the abuses which had crept into the Spartan polity, he introduced regenerative laws. Among others, one for the equalization of property, and as an example of disinterested liberality, shared his estate with the community. Unappreciated by the degenerated Senate however, he was deposed, and, with his whole family, strangled by order of the ingrate State.—Edin. Encyc.It is said that when Jugurtha was led before the ear of the conquerer, he lost his senses. After the triumph he was thrown into prison, where, whilst they were in haste to strip him, some tore his robes off his back, and others, catching eagerly at his pendants, pulled off the tips of his ears with them. When he was thrust down naked into the dungeon, all wild and confused, he said, with a frantic smile, "Heavens! how cold is this bath of yours!" There struggling for six days with starvation, and to the last hour laboring for the preservation of his life, he came to his end.—Plut. Cai. Mar.

"Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate."

Agis, King of Lacedemon and colleague of Leonidas, was a youth of singular purity and promise. Aiming to correct the abuses which had crept into the Spartan polity, he introduced regenerative laws. Among others, one for the equalization of property, and as an example of disinterested liberality, shared his estate with the community. Unappreciated by the degenerated Senate however, he was deposed, and, with his whole family, strangled by order of the ingrate State.—Edin. Encyc.

It is said that when Jugurtha was led before the ear of the conquerer, he lost his senses. After the triumph he was thrown into prison, where, whilst they were in haste to strip him, some tore his robes off his back, and others, catching eagerly at his pendants, pulled off the tips of his ears with them. When he was thrust down naked into the dungeon, all wild and confused, he said, with a frantic smile, "Heavens! how cold is this bath of yours!" There struggling for six days with starvation, and to the last hour laboring for the preservation of his life, he came to his end.—Plut. Cai. Mar.

[10]"Breathes the warm odor which thegirgirbears,"The girgir, or thegeshe el aube, a species of flowering grass. Piercing, fragrant, and grateful in its odor, it operates not unlike a mild stimulant, when respired for any length of time, and is found chiefly near the borders of small streams and in the vicinage of the Tassada.—Lyn. Gui. and Soud.

"Breathes the warm odor which thegirgirbears,"

The girgir, or thegeshe el aube, a species of flowering grass. Piercing, fragrant, and grateful in its odor, it operates not unlike a mild stimulant, when respired for any length of time, and is found chiefly near the borders of small streams and in the vicinage of the Tassada.—Lyn. Gui. and Soud.

[11]"Where browse thefechoand the dun-gazelle."Among the wild animals are prodigious numbers of the vari-colored species of the gazelle, the bohur sassa, fecho, and madoqua. They are extremely numerous in the provinces depopulatedby war and slavery, enjoying the wild oats of the deserted hamlets without fear of molestation from a returning population.—Notes on Central Africa.

"Where browse thefechoand the dun-gazelle."

Among the wild animals are prodigious numbers of the vari-colored species of the gazelle, the bohur sassa, fecho, and madoqua. They are extremely numerous in the provinces depopulatedby war and slavery, enjoying the wild oats of the deserted hamlets without fear of molestation from a returning population.—Notes on Central Africa.

[12]"And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules,Gazed at the stars which stud yon tender blue,And hoped and deemed the cheat of death untrue."Though Socrates and Plato, particularly the former, are generally admitted by writers of authority, among whom, indeed, are Polycarpe, Chrysotom, and Eusebius, to have in a mannersuspectedrather than believed, the immortality of the soul; yet we have no evidence of their ever having, by the finest process of ratiocination, so thoroughly convinced themselves as to introduce it generally as a tenable thesis on the portico. A beautiful thread of implicit belief and fervent hope, of after life, assimilating to the hunting-ground of our own American Indians, and though sensuous still, a step far in advance of the black void of ancient philosophy, has always run through the higher mythologies of the Negro. So notorious, indeed, was the fact among early Christians, that that ubiquitous riddle, "Prestor John," was, by believers, regarded as having alocalein Central Africa; while Henry of Portugal actually despatched two ambassadors, Corvilla and Payvan, to a rumored Christian court, south of the Sahara.—Edin. Encyc. Early Chris. His. Port.

"And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules,Gazed at the stars which stud yon tender blue,And hoped and deemed the cheat of death untrue."

Though Socrates and Plato, particularly the former, are generally admitted by writers of authority, among whom, indeed, are Polycarpe, Chrysotom, and Eusebius, to have in a mannersuspectedrather than believed, the immortality of the soul; yet we have no evidence of their ever having, by the finest process of ratiocination, so thoroughly convinced themselves as to introduce it generally as a tenable thesis on the portico. A beautiful thread of implicit belief and fervent hope, of after life, assimilating to the hunting-ground of our own American Indians, and though sensuous still, a step far in advance of the black void of ancient philosophy, has always run through the higher mythologies of the Negro. So notorious, indeed, was the fact among early Christians, that that ubiquitous riddle, "Prestor John," was, by believers, regarded as having alocalein Central Africa; while Henry of Portugal actually despatched two ambassadors, Corvilla and Payvan, to a rumored Christian court, south of the Sahara.—Edin. Encyc. Early Chris. His. Port.

[13]"Yet supple sophist to a plastic mind,Sees gods in woods, and spirits in the wind."The imagination of the African, like his musical genius, which extracts surprising harmony from the rudest of sources, the clapping of hands, the clanking of chains, the resonance of lasso wood, and perforated shells, seems to invest everything with a resident spirit of peculiar power. Accordingly, his mythologies are most numerous and poetical—his entire catalogue of superior gods alone, embracing a more extended length than the Assyro-Babylon Alphabet, with its three hundred letters.

"Yet supple sophist to a plastic mind,Sees gods in woods, and spirits in the wind."

The imagination of the African, like his musical genius, which extracts surprising harmony from the rudest of sources, the clapping of hands, the clanking of chains, the resonance of lasso wood, and perforated shells, seems to invest everything with a resident spirit of peculiar power. Accordingly, his mythologies are most numerous and poetical—his entire catalogue of superior gods alone, embracing a more extended length than the Assyro-Babylon Alphabet, with its three hundred letters.

[14]"The vengeful causes and the deed forgot."All travellers agree in the facile ductility and inertia-like amiability of the native African character.—Brewsteron Africa.

"The vengeful causes and the deed forgot."

All travellers agree in the facile ductility and inertia-like amiability of the native African character.—Brewsteron Africa.

[15]"The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew."The negro race is, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species. Their infancy and youth are singularly happy. The parents are passionately fond of their children.—Goldbury'sTravels."Strike me," said my attendant, "but do not curse my mother." The same sentiment I found universally to prevail.Some of the first lessons in which the Mandings women instruct their children is thepractice of truth. It was the only consolation for a negro mother, whose son had been murdered by the Moors, that "the boy had never told a lie."—Park'sTravels.

"The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew."

The negro race is, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species. Their infancy and youth are singularly happy. The parents are passionately fond of their children.—Goldbury'sTravels.

"Strike me," said my attendant, "but do not curse my mother." The same sentiment I found universally to prevail.

Some of the first lessons in which the Mandings women instruct their children is thepractice of truth. It was the only consolation for a negro mother, whose son had been murdered by the Moors, that "the boy had never told a lie."—Park'sTravels.

[16]"With all the father sees each form retire,A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire.""Or led the combat, bold without a plan,An artless savage, but a fearless man."Campbell.

"With all the father sees each form retire,A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire.""Or led the combat, bold without a plan,An artless savage, but a fearless man."Campbell.

"With all the father sees each form retire,A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire."

"Or led the combat, bold without a plan,An artless savage, but a fearless man."Campbell.

[17]"Till lured by wealth the hardy Portuguese,Sought the green waters of his Eastern seas,And venturous nations more excursive grown,Pierced his glad coast from radiant zone to zone."Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese nobleman, was the first to discover a maritime passage to the Indies; unless, perhaps, we credit the improbable achievement of the Phœnicians, related by Herodotus as occurring, 604b.c.De Gama doubled the cape in 1498, explored the eastern shores as far as Melinda, in Zanguebar, and sailing thence arrived at Calcutta in May. This expedition, second to none in its results, save that of Columbus six years before, drew the attention of all Europe. Whole nations became actuated by the same enthusiasm, and private companies of merchants sent out whole fleets on voyages of discovery, scouring the entire coast from Cape Verd to Gaudfui, and discovering the Mascharenhas and most of the islands of the Ethiopean Archipelago.

"Till lured by wealth the hardy Portuguese,Sought the green waters of his Eastern seas,And venturous nations more excursive grown,Pierced his glad coast from radiant zone to zone."

Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese nobleman, was the first to discover a maritime passage to the Indies; unless, perhaps, we credit the improbable achievement of the Phœnicians, related by Herodotus as occurring, 604b.c.

De Gama doubled the cape in 1498, explored the eastern shores as far as Melinda, in Zanguebar, and sailing thence arrived at Calcutta in May. This expedition, second to none in its results, save that of Columbus six years before, drew the attention of all Europe. Whole nations became actuated by the same enthusiasm, and private companies of merchants sent out whole fleets on voyages of discovery, scouring the entire coast from Cape Verd to Gaudfui, and discovering the Mascharenhas and most of the islands of the Ethiopean Archipelago.

[18]"Cheats his own nature and now generous grown,Dispenses realms and empires not his own."Charles V. granted a patentto one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right to import four thousand negroes!—Hist. Slavery.The crime of havingfirstrecommended the importation of African slaves into America,is due to the Flemish nobility, who obtained a monopoly of four thousand negroes, which they sold to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats.—Life of Cardinal Ximenes.They (the Genoese) were the first to bring into a regular form, that commerce for slaves, between Africa and America, which has since grown to such an amazing extent.—Robertson.

"Cheats his own nature and now generous grown,Dispenses realms and empires not his own."

Charles V. granted a patentto one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right to import four thousand negroes!—Hist. Slavery.

The crime of havingfirstrecommended the importation of African slaves into America,is due to the Flemish nobility, who obtained a monopoly of four thousand negroes, which they sold to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats.—Life of Cardinal Ximenes.

They (the Genoese) were the first to bring into a regular form, that commerce for slaves, between Africa and America, which has since grown to such an amazing extent.—Robertson.

[19]"Too warmly generous and dearly true,The simple black," &c.It will remain an indelible reproach on the name of Europeans, that for more than three centuries their intercourse with the Africans has only tended to destroy their happiness and debase their character.—Edin. Ency.

"Too warmly generous and dearly true,The simple black," &c.

It will remain an indelible reproach on the name of Europeans, that for more than three centuries their intercourse with the Africans has only tended to destroy their happiness and debase their character.—Edin. Ency.

[20]"Now laughs the stranger at their anguished throes."The arts of the slave-merchant have inflamed the hostility of their various tribes, and heightened their ferocity by sedulously increasing their wars.—Ibid.

"Now laughs the stranger at their anguished throes."

The arts of the slave-merchant have inflamed the hostility of their various tribes, and heightened their ferocity by sedulously increasing their wars.—Ibid.

[21]"By specious creeds and sophists darkly taught."Hamlet's advice to his offending mother;—"Assume a virtue, tho' you have it not."Adding hypocrisy to avowed unworthiness, was the acknowledged injunction of the church, wherever and whenever she participated in secular affairs, with a view of emolument. For a peculiar illustration of this favorite doctrine, see Clement VI.'s edict, when, in virtue of the right arrogated by the holy seeto dispose of all countries belonging to the heathen, he erected (1344) the Canaries into a kingdom, and disposed of them to Lewis de la Corda, a prince of Castile.

"By specious creeds and sophists darkly taught."

Hamlet's advice to his offending mother;—

"Assume a virtue, tho' you have it not."

Adding hypocrisy to avowed unworthiness, was the acknowledged injunction of the church, wherever and whenever she participated in secular affairs, with a view of emolument. For a peculiar illustration of this favorite doctrine, see Clement VI.'s edict, when, in virtue of the right arrogated by the holy seeto dispose of all countries belonging to the heathen, he erected (1344) the Canaries into a kingdom, and disposed of them to Lewis de la Corda, a prince of Castile.

[22]"Or bolder still on fancy's fiery wing."That I do not exaggerate thebelle lettresand classical accomplishments of at least two of the "chattels" of the "peculiar institution," in the lines following the above, see "Poems written by Rosa and Maria,"propertyof South Carolina, and published in 1834.

"Or bolder still on fancy's fiery wing."

That I do not exaggerate thebelle lettresand classical accomplishments of at least two of the "chattels" of the "peculiar institution," in the lines following the above, see "Poems written by Rosa and Maria,"propertyof South Carolina, and published in 1834.

[23]"HearLoxianmurmurs in Rhodolphe's caves."Loxian is a name frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers and is met with, more than once, in the "Chœphoræ of Eschylus."—Campbell.Euripides mentions it three times, and Sophocles twice, its euphony recommends it more than any other name of the fair-haired god.

"HearLoxianmurmurs in Rhodolphe's caves."

Loxian is a name frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers and is met with, more than once, in the "Chœphoræ of Eschylus."—Campbell.

Euripides mentions it three times, and Sophocles twice, its euphony recommends it more than any other name of the fair-haired god.

[24]"And in the march of nations led thevan."Campbell

"And in the march of nations led thevan."Campbell

Henry Ward Beecher. (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)Henry Ward Beecher. (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)

Brooklyn, December 6th, 1853.

Dear Sir,—

Your note of November 29th, requesting a line from me for the Autographs for Freedom, is received.

I wish that I had something that would add to the literary value of your laudable enterprise. In so great a cause as that of human liberty, every great interest in society ought to have a voice and a decisive testimony. Art should be in sympathy with freedom and literature, and all human learning should speak withunmistakableaccents for the elevation, evangelization, and liberation of the oppressed. In a future day, the historian cannot purge our political history from the shame of wanton and mercenary oppression. But there is not, I believe, a book in the literature of ourcountry that will be alive and known a hundred years hence, in which can be found the taint of despotism. The literature of the world is on the side of liberty.

I am very truly yours,

(signature) Henry Ward Beecher(signature) Henry Ward Beecher

H. B. Stowe (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)H. B. Stowe (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)

PLAYFORD HALL, SUFFOLK. The seat of Thomas Clarkson, Esq.PLAYFORD HALL, SUFFOLK. The seat of Thomas Clarkson,Esq.

It was a pleasant morning in May,—I believe that is the orthodox way of beginning a story,—when C. and I took the cars to go into the country to Playford Hall. "And what's Playford Hall?" you say. "And why did you go to see it?" As to what it is, here is a reasonably good picture before you. As to why, it was for many years the residence of Thomas Clarkson, and is now the residence of his venerable widow and her family.

Playford Hall is considered, I think, the oldest of the fortified houses in England, and is, I am told, the only one that has water in the moat. The water which is seen girdling the wall in the picture, is the moat; it surrounds the place entirely, leaving no access except across the bridge, which is here represented.

After crossing this bridge, you come into a green court-yard, filled with choice plants and flowering shrubs, and carpeted with that thick, soft, velvet-like grass, which is to be found nowhere else in so perfect a state as in England.

The water is fed by a perpetual spring, whose current is so sluggish as scarcely to be perceptible, but which yet has the vitality of a running stream.

It has a dark and glassy stillness of surface, only broken by the forms of the water plants, whose leaves float thickly over it.

The walls of the moat are green with ancient moss, and from the crevices springs an abundant flowering vine, whose delicate leaves and bright yellow flowers in some places entirely mantled the stones with their graceful drapery.

The picture I have given you represents only one side of the moat. The other side is grown up with dark and thick shrubbery and ancient trees, rising and embowering the whole place, adding to the retired and singular effect of the whole. The place is a specimen of a sort of thing which does not exist in America. It is one of those significant landmarkswhich unite the present with the past, for which we must return to the country of our origin.

Playford Hall is a thing peculiarly English, and Thomas Clarkson, for whose sake I visited it, was as peculiarly an Englishman,—a specimen of the very best kind of English mind and character, as this is of characteristic English architecture.

We Anglo-Saxons have won a hard name in the world. There are undoubtedly bad things which are true about us.

Taking our developments as a race, both in England and America, we may be justly called the Romans of the nineteenth century. We have been the race which has conquered, subdued, and broken in pieces, other weaker races, with little regard either to justice or mercy. With regard to benefits by us imparted to conquered nations, I think a better story, on the whole, can be made out for the Romans than for us. Witness the treatment of the Chinese, of the tribes of India, and of our own American Indians.

But still there is an Anglo-Saxon blood, a vigorous sense of justice, as appears in our Habeas Corpus, our jury trials, and other features of State organization, and, when this is tempered in individuals, with theelements of gentleness and compassion, and enforced by that energy and indomitable perseverance which are characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon mind, they form a style of philanthropists peculiarly efficient. In short, the Anglo-Saxon is efficient, in whatever he sets himself about, whether in crushing the weak, or lifting them up.

Thomas Clarkson was born in a day when good, pious people, imported cargoes of slaves from Africa, as one of the regular Christianized modes of gaining a subsistence, and providing for them and their households. It was a thing that everybody was doing, and everybody thought they had a right to do. It was supposed that all the coffee, tea, and sugar in the world were dependent on stealing men, women, and children, and could be got no other way; and as to consume coffee, sugar, rice, and rum, were evidently the chief ends of human existence, it followed that men, women, and children, must be stolen to the end of time.

Some good people, when they now and then heard an appalling story of the cruelties practiced in the slave ship, declared that it was really too bad, sympathetically remarked, "What a sorrowful world welive in," stirred their sugar into their tea, and went on as before, because, what was there to do—hadn't everybody always done it, and if they didn't do it, wouldn't somebody else?

It is true that for many years individuals, at different times, remonstrated, had written treatises, poems, stories, and movements had been made by some religious ladies, particularly the Quakers, but the opposition had amounted to nothing practically efficient.

The attention of Clarkson was first turned to the subject by having it given out as the theme for a prize composition in his college class, he being at that time a sprightly young man, about twenty-four years of age. He entered into the investigation with no other purpose than to see what he could make of it as a college theme.

He says of himself: "I had expected pleasure from the invention of arguments, from the arrangement of them, from the putting of them together, and from the thought, in the interim, that I was engaged in an innocent contest for literary honor, but all my pleasures were damped by the facts, which were now continually before me.

"It was but one gloomy subject from morning tillnight; in the day time I was uneasy, in the night I had little rest, I sometimes never closed my eyelids for grief."

It became not now so much a trial for academical reputation as to write a work which should be useful to Africa. It is not surprising that a work, written under the force of such feelings, should have gained the prize, as it did. Clarkson was summoned from London to Cambridge, to deliver his prize essay publicly. He says of himself, on returning back to London: "The subject of it almost wholly engrossed my thoughts. I became at times very seriously affected while on the road. I stopped my horse occasionally, dismounted, and walked.

"I frequently tried to persuade myself that the contents of my essay could not be true, but the more I reflected on the authorities on which they were founded, the more I gave them credit. Coming in sight of Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the essay were true, it was time that somebody should see these calamities to an end."

These reflections, as it appears, were put off for awhile, but returned again.

This young and noble heart was of a kind that could not comfort itself so easily for a brother's sorrow as many do.

He says of himself: "In the course of the autumn of the same year, I walked frequently into the woods that I might think of the subject in solitude, and find relief to my mind there; but there the question still recurred, 'are these things true?' Still the answer followed as instantaneously, 'they are;' still the result accompanied it,—surely some person should interfere. I began to envy those who had seats in Parliament, riches, and widely-extended connections, which would enable them to take up this cause.

"Finding scarcely any one, at the time, who thought of it, I was turned frequently to myself, but here many difficulties arose. It struck me, among others, that a young man only twenty-four years of age could not have that solid judgment, or that knowledge of men, manners, and things, which were requisite to qualify him to undertake a task of such magnitude and importance; and with whom was I to unite? I believed, also, that it looked so much like one of thefeigned labors of Hercules, that my understanding would be suspected, if I proposed it."

He however resolved to do something for the cause by translating his essay from Latin into English, enlarging and presenting it to the public. Immediately on the publication of this essay, he discovered to his astonishment and delight, that he was not the only one who had been interested in this subject.

Being invited to the house of William Dillwyn, one of these friends to the cause, he says: "How surprised was I to learn, in the course of our conversation, of the labors of Granville Sharp, of the writings of Ramsey, and of the controversy in which the latter was engaged, of all which I had hitherto known nothing. How surprised was I to learn that William Dillwyn had, himself, two years before, associated himself with five others for the purpose of enlightening the public mind on this great subject.

"How astonished was I to find, that a society had been formed in America for the same object. These thoughts almost overpowered me. My mind was overwhelmed by the thought, that I had been providentially directed to this house; the finger of Providencewas beginning to be discernible, and that the day-star of African liberty was rising."

After this he associated with many friends of the cause, and at last it became evident that in order to effect anything, he must sacrifice all other prospects in life, and devote himself exclusively to this work.

He says, after mentioning reasons which prevented all his associates from doing this: "I could look, therefore, to no person but myself; and the question was, whether I was prepared to make the sacrifice. In favor of the undertaking, I urged to myself that never was any cause, which had been taken up by man, in any country or in any age, so great and important; that never was there one in which so much misery was heard to cry for redress; that never was there one in which so much good could be done; never one in which the duty of Christian charity could be so extensively exercised; never one more worthy of the devotion of a whole life towards it; and that, if a man thought properly, he ought to rejoice to have been called into existence, if he were only permitted to become an instrument in forwarding it in any part of its progress.

"Against these sentiments, on the other hand, I hadto urge that I had been designed for the church; that I had already advanced as far as deacon's orders in it; that my prospects there on account of my connections were then brilliant; that, by appearing to desert my profession, my family would be dissatisfied, if not unhappy. These thoughts pressed upon me, and rendered the conflict difficult.

"But the sacrifice of my prospects staggered me, I own, the most. When the other objections which I have related, occurred to me, my enthusiasm instantly, like a flash of lightning, consumed them; but this stuck to me, and troubled me. I had ambition. I had a thirst after worldly interest and honors, and I could not extinguish it at once. I was more than two hours in solitude under this painful conflict. At length I yielded, not because I saw any reasonable prospect of success in my new undertaking, for all cool-headed and cool-hearted men would have pronounced against it; but in obedience, I believe, to a higher Power. And I can say, that both on the moment of this resolution, and for some time afterwards, I had more sublime and happy feelings than at any former period of my life."

In order to show how this enterprise was lookedupon and talked of very commonly by the majority of men in these times, we will extract the following passage from Boswell's Life of Johnson, in which Bozzy thus enters his solemn protest: "The wild and dangerous attempt, which has for some time been persisted in, to obtain an act of our Legislature, to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose, that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received, excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity, when prosperous; or a love of general mischief, when desperate, my opinion is unshaken.

"To abolish a statute which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces intoa much happier state of life; especially now, when their passage to the West Indies, and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish this trade, would be to

'—— shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'"

One of the first steps of Clarkson and his associates, was the formation of a committee of twelve persons, for the collection and dissemination of evidence on the subject.

The contest now began in earnest, a contest as sublime as any the world ever saw.

The Abolition controversy more fully aroused the virtue, the talent, and the religion of the great English nation, than any other event or crisis which ever occurred.

Wilberforce was the leader of the question in Parliament. The other members of the Anti-slavery Committee performed those labors which were necessary out of it.

This labor consisted principally in the collection of evidence with regard to the traffic, and the presentation of it before the public mind. In this laborClarkson was particularly engaged. The subject was hemmed in with the same difficulties that now beset the Anti-slavery cause in America. Those who knew most about it, were precisely those whose interest it was to prevent inquiry. An immense moneyed interest was arrayed against investigation, and was determined to suppress the agitation of the subject. Owing to this powerful pressure, many who were in possession of facts which would bear upon this subject, refused to communicate them; and often after a long and wearisome journey in search of an individual who could throw light upon the subject, Clarkson had the mortification to find his lips sealed by interest or timidity. As usual, the cause of oppression was defended by the most impudent lying; the slave-trade was asserted to be the latest revised edition of philanthropy. It was said that the poor African, the slave of miserable oppression in his own country, was wafted by it to an asylum in a Christian land; that the middle passage was to the poor negro a perfect elysium, infinitely happier than anything he had ever known in his own country. All this was said while manacles, and hand-cuffs, and thumb-screws, and instruments to force open the mouth, were a regular partof the stock for a slave ship, and were hanging in the shop windows of Liverpool for sale.

For Clarkson's attention was first called to these things by observing them in the shop window, and on inquiring the use of one of them, the man informed him that many times negroes were sulky and tried to starve themselves to death, and this instrument was used to force open their jaws.

Of Clarkson's labor in this investigation some idea may be gathered from his own words, when stating that for a season he was compelled to retire from the cause, he thus speaks. "As far as I myself was concerned, all exertion was then over. The nervous system was almost shattered to pieces. Both my memory and my hearing failed me. Sudden dizzinesses seized my head. A confused singing in the ear followed me wherever I went. On going to bed the very stairs seemed to dance up and down under me, so that, misplacing my foot, I sometimes fell. Talking, too, if it continued but half an hour, exhausted me so that profuse perspirations followed, and the same effect was produced even by an active exertion of the mind for the like time.

These disorders had been brought on by degrees, inconsequence of the severe labors necessarily attached to the promotion of the cause. For seven years I had a correspondence to maintain with four hundred persons, with my own hand; I had some book or other annually to write in behalf of the cause. In this time I had traveled more than thirty-five thousand miles in search of evidence, and a great part of these journeys in the night. All this time my mind had been on the stretch. It had been bent too to this one subject, for I had not even leisure to attend to my own concerns. The various instances of barbarity which had come successively to my knowledge within this period, had vexed, harrassed, and afflicted it. The wound which these had produced was rendered still deeper by those cruel disappointments before related, which arose from the reiterated refusals of persons to give their testimony, after I had traveled hundreds of miles in quest of them. But the severest stroke was that inflicted by the persecution, begun and pursued by persons interested in the continuance of the trade, of such witnesses as had been examined against them; and whom, on account of their dependent situation in life, it was most easy to oppress. As I had been the means of bringing these forward on these occasions, they naturallycame to me, when thus persecuted, as the author of their miseries and their ruin. From their supplications and wants it would have been ungenerous and ungrateful to have fled. These different circumstances, by acting together, had at length brought me into the situation just mentioned; and I was therefore obliged, though very reluctantly, to be borne out of the field, where I had placed the great honor and glory of my life."

I may as well add here that a Mr. Whitbread, to whom Clarkson mentioned this latter cause of distress, generously offered to repair the pecuniary losses of all who had suffered in this cause. One anecdote will be a specimen of the energy with which Clarkson pursued evidence. It had been very strenuously asserted and maintained that the subjects of the slave trade were only such unfortunates as had become prisoners of war, and who, if not carried out of the country in this manner, would be exposed to death or some more dreadful doom in their own country. This was one of those stories which nobody believed, and yet was particularly useful in the hands of the opposition, because it was difficult legally to disprove it. It was perfectly well known that in very many cases slavetradersmade direct incursions into the country, kidnapped, and carried off the inhabitants of whole villages, but the question was, how to establish it? A gentleman whom Clarkson accidentally met on one of his journeys, informed him that he had been in company, about a year before, with a sailor, a very respectable looking young man, who had actually been engaged in one of these expeditions; he had spent half an hour with him at an inn; he described his person, but knew nothing of his name or the place of his abode, all he knew was that he belonged to a ship of war in ordinary, but knew nothing of the port. Clarkson determined that this man should be produced as a witness, and knew no better way than to go personally to all the ships in ordinary, until the individual was found. He actually visited every sea-port town, and boarded every ship, till in the verylastport and on the verylastship which remained, the individual was found, and found to be possessed of just the facts and information which were necessary. By the labors of Clarkson and his contemporaries an incredible excitement was produced throughout all England. The pictures and models of slave ships, accounts of the cruelties practised in the trade, were circulated withan industry which left not a man, woman, or child in England uninstructed. In disseminating information, and in awakening feeling and conscience, the women of England were particularly earnest, and labored with that whole-hearted devotion which characterizes the sex.

It seems that after the committee had published the facts, and sent them to every town in England, Clarkson followed them up by journeying to all the places, to see that they were read and attended to. Of the state of feeling at this time, Clarkson gives the following account:

"And first I may observe, that there was no town through which I passed, in which there was not some one individual who had left off the use of sugar. In the smaller towns there were from ten to fifty, by estimation, and in the larger, from two to five hundred, who made this sacrifice to virtue. These were of all ranks and parties. Rich and poor, churchmen and dissenters had adopted the measure. Even grocers had left off trading in the article in some places. In gentlemen's families, where the master had set the example, the servants had often voluntarily followed it; and even children, who were capable of understandingthe history of the sufferings of the Africans, excluded with the most virtuous resolution the sweets, to which they had been accustomed, from their lips. By the best computation I was able to make, from notes taken down in my journey, no fewer than three hundred thousand persons had abandoned the use of sugar." It was the reality, depth, and earnestness of the public feeling, thus aroused, which pressed with resistless force upon the government; for the government of England yields to popular demands, quite as readily as that of America.

After years of protracted struggle, the victory was at last won. The slave-trade was finally abolished through all the British empire; and not only so, but the English nation committed, with the whole force of its national influence, to seek the abolition of the slave-trade in all the nations of the earth. But the wave of feeling did not rest there; the investigations had brought before the English conscience the horrors and abominations of slavery itself, and the agitation never ceased till slavery was finally abolished through all the British provinces. At this time the religious mind and conscience of England gained, through this very struggle, a power which it never has lost. Theprinciple adopted by them was the same so sublimely adopted by the church in America, in reference to the Foreign Missionary cause: "The field is the world." They saw and felt that as the example and practice of England had been powerful in giving sanction to this evil, and particularly in introducing it into America, that there was the greatest reason why she should never intermit her efforts till the wrong was righted throughout the earth.

Clarkson to his last day never ceased to be interested in the subject, and took the warmest interest in all movements for the abolition of slavery in America.

One of his friends, during my visit at this place, read me a manuscript letter from him, written at a very advanced age, in which he speaks with the utmost ardor and enthusiasm of the first anti-slavery movements of Cassius Clay in Kentucky. The same friend described him to me as a cheerful, companionable being,—frank and simple-hearted, and with a good deal of quiet humor.

It is remarkable of him that with such intense feeling for human suffering as he had, and worn down and exhausted as he was, by the dreadful miseries and sorrows with which he was constantly obliged to befamiliar, he never yielded to a spirit of bitterness or denunciation.

The narrative which he gives is as calm and unimpassioned, and as free from any trait of this kind, as the narrative of the evangelist.

I have given this sketch of what Clarkson did, that you may better appreciate the feelings with which I visited the place.

The old stone house, the moat, the draw-bridge, all spoke of days of violence long gone by, when no man was safe except within fortified walls, and every man's house literally had to be his castle.

To me it was interesting as the dwelling of a conqueror, as one who had not wrestled with flesh and blood merely, but with principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and who had overcome, as his great Master did before him, by faith, and prayer, and labor.

We were received with much cordiality by the widow of Clarkson, now in her eighty-fourth year. She has been a woman of great energy and vigor, and an efficient co-laborer in his plans of benevolence.

She is now quite feeble. I was placed under the care of a respectable female servant, who forthwithinstalled me in a large chamber overlooking the court-yard, which had been Clarkson's own room; the room where for years, many of his most important labors had been conducted, and from whence his soul had ascended to the reward of the just.

The servant who attended me seemed to be quite a superior woman; like many of the servants in respectable English families. She had grown up in the family, and was identified with it; its ruling aims and purposes had become hers. She had been the personal attendant of Clarkson, and his nurse during his last sickness; she had evidently understood, and been interested in his plans, and the veneration with which she therefore spoke of him, had the sanction of intelligent appreciation.

A daughter of Clarkson, who was married to a neighboring clergyman, with her husband, was also present on this day.

After dinner we rode out to see the old church, in hose enclosure the remains of Clarkson repose. It was just such a still, quiet, mossy old church, as you have read of in story-books, with the grave-yard spread all around it, like a thoughtful mother, who watches the resting of her children.

The grass in the yard was long and green, and the daisy, which in other places lies like a little button on the ground, here had a richer fringe of crimson, and a stalk about six inches high. It is, I well know, the vital influence from the slumbering dust beneath, which gives the richness to this grass and these flowers; but let not that be a painful thought; let it rather cheer us, that beauty should spring from ashes, and life smile brighter from the near presence of death. The grave of Clarkson was near the church, enclosed by a railing and marked by a simple white marble slab; it was carefully tended and planted with flowers. In the church was an old book of records, and among other curious inscriptions, was one recording how a pious committee of old Noll's army had been there, knocking off saints' noses, and otherwise purging the church from the relics of idolatry.

Near by the church was the parsonage, the home of my friends, a neat, pleasant, sequestered dwelling, of about the style of a New England country parsonage.

The effect of the whole together was inexpressibly beautiful to me. For a wonder, it was a pleasant day, and this is a thing always to be thankfully acknowledgedin England. The calm stillness of the afternoon, the seclusion of the whole place, the silence only broken by the cawing of the rooks, the ancient church, the mossy graves with their flowers and green grass, the sunshine and the tree shadows, all seemed to mingle together in a kind of hazy dream of peacefulness and rest. How natural it is to say of some place sheltered, simple, cool, and retired, here one might find peace, as if peace came from without, and not from within. In the shadiest and stillest places may be the most turbulent hearts, and there are hearts which, through the busiest scenes, carry with them unchanging peace. As we were walking back, we passed many cottages of the poor.

I noticed, with particular pleasure, the invariable flower garden attached to each. Some pansies in one of them attracted my attention by their peculiar beauty, so very large and richly colored. On being introduced to the owner of them, she, with cheerful alacrity, offered me some of the finest. I do not doubt of there being suffering and misery in the agricultural population of England, but still there are multitudes of cottages, which are really very pleasant objects, as were all these. The cottagers had thatbright, rosy look of health which we seldom see in America, and appeared to be both polite and self-respecting.

In the evening we had quite a gathering of friends from the neighborhood—intelligent, sensible, earnest, people—who had grown up in the love of the anti-slavery cause as into religion. The subject of conversation was: "The duty of English people to free themselves from any participation in American slavery, by taking means to encourage the production of free cotton in the British provinces."

It is no more impossible or improbable that something effective may be done in this way, than that the slave-trade should have been abolished. Every great movement seems an impossibility at first. There is no end to the number of things declared and proved impossible, which have been done already, so that this may do something yet.

Mrs. Clarkson had retired from the room early; after a while she sent for me to her sitting-room. The faithful attendant of whom I spoke was with her. She wished to show me some relics of her husband, his watch and seals, some of his papers and manuscripts; among these was the identical prize essaywith which he began his career, and a commentary on the Gospels, which he had written with great care, for the use of his grandson. His seal attracted my attention—it was that kneeling figure, of the negro, with clasped hands, which was at first adopted as the badge of the cause, when every means was being made use of to arouse the public mind and keep the subject before the attention. Mr. Wedgewood, the celebrated porcelain manufacturer, designed a cameo, with this representation, which was much worn as an ornament by ladies. It was engraved on the seal of the Anti-Slavery Society, and was used by its members in sealing all their letters. This of Clarkson's was handsomely engraved on a large, old-fashioned cornelian, and surely if we look with emotion on the sword of a departed hero, which, at best, we can consider only as a necessary evil, we may look with unmingled pleasure on this memorial of a bloodless victory.

When I retired to my room for the night I could not but feel that the place was hallowed—unceasing prayer had there been offered for the enslaved and wronged race of Africa by that noble and brotherly heart. I could not but feel that that those prayers had had a wider reach than the mere extinction ofslavery in one land or country, and that their benign influence would not cease till not a slave was left upon the face of the earth.

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