XXI.

Mr. Garrison's Visits Abroad - The London Conference of 1840– American Women Excluded - Mr. Garrison Refuses to be a Member-Excitement in England — O'Connell and Bowring The Visit of 1846-The Free Church of Scotland - The Visit of 1867 The London Breakfast - John Bright- The Duke of Argyll John Stuart Mill - Goldwin Smith

George Thompson-Speech of Mr. Garrison-The Visit of 1877-Sightseeing-Visits to Old Friends - Delectable Days - Farewells.

OF Mr. Garrison's first visit to England (1833) I have already given an account. He went a second time as a delegate to the London Anti-Slavery Conference of 1840. The friends of New Organization had the ear of the British and Foreign Society at that time, and care was taken, on this side the water, to guard the Conference against the intrusion of women from America. The Garrisonian anti-slavery societies, having admitted women to membership, were bound in honor to respect their rights in the appointment of delegates to the Conference. The women commissioned as delegates by the different societies were: Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Wendell Phillips, Sarah Pugh, Mary Grew, Elizabeth J. Neall (now Mrs. Sydney Howard Gay), and Emily Winslow (now Mrs. Taylor). I venture to say that these were as well qualified for the service as any equal number of the other sex, sent to the Conference from this or any other country. But the committee of the British and Foreign Society, which assumed the right to frame rules for the Conference, excluded them, on the ground that their admission would be contrary to "British

usage. Wendell Phillips made a strenuous effort to induce the Conference to repeal this rule and admit the women delegates, but in vain. He spoke eloquently, but to men whose minds were made up and impatient of argument. The Conference had been in session about a week when Mr. Garrison, with N. P. Rogers, Charles L. Remond and William Adams, all delegates, arrived in London. When Mr. Garrison learned that the credentials of the women delegates had been dishonored, he at once determined not to enter the Conference, but to take his place in the gallery as a spectator. His example was followed by the other gentlemen who arrived at the same time with himself. Seven other American delegates, who had entered the Conference before Mr. Garrison's arrival, framed a protest against the exclusion. These were Prof. W. Adam, James Mott, C. E. Lester, Isaac Winslow, Wendell Phillips, Jonathan P. Miller and George Bradburn.

Of course, these occurrences made no little stir among British Abolitionists. The excluded women were treated with the highest respect socially, save by a few of the more bigoted sort. The question of their exclusion was warmly discussed in private, and many of those who made their acquaintance were not a little mortified that "British usage" had found such an illustration. Daniel O'Connell was among those who expressed regret in view of their exclusion, and who showed them marked attentions. So also was Sir John Bowring, who said, "The coming of those women will form an era in the future history of philanthropy. They made a deep impression, and have created apostles, if as yet they have not multitudes of followers.' Mr. Garrison won universal respect by his course in refusing to be a member of the Conference. As the recognized founder of the movement in the United States, he became all the more conspicuous

from his outside position; and the gallery where he sat, surrounded by the excluded delegates, was a point of interest hardly inferior to the Conference itself. The head of the table, by a fore-ordained necessity, must be where McGreggor sits! Some (not all) of the friends of New Organization from America made desperate efforts to discredit Mr. Garrison with the Abolitionists of England, but succeeded only in discrediting themselves. He was treated with the utmost respect and consideration on every side, and invited to unfold, in private, all those dreadful heresies of opinion which had been the cause of so much disturbance in his own country. The Abolitionists of Great Britain liked him not a whit the less, but all the more, after listening to his frank statements and explanations. He afterwards said: "If there is any one act of my life of which I am particularly proud, it is in refusing to join such a body [the London Conference] on terms which were manifestly reproachful to my constituents, and unjust to the cause of liberty."

Mr. Garrison crossed the Atlantic for the third time in 1846, at the special invitation of the Glasgow Emancipation Society, and by advice of the Executive Committee of the American Society, to take part in the arraignment before the people of Scotland of the agents sent by the Free Church of that country to collect funds for church purposes among the slaveholders of the South. Scotland was deeply moved by the action of those agents. Meetings were held in all the principal towns, and the cry, "Send Back the Money!" rang out from the lips of thousands and tens of thousands of people. The Free Church, however, held on to the gains of oppression. Henry C. Wright, and, if I mistake not, Charles L. Remond and James N. Buffum were already in Scotland when the agents returned from the United States. They, with Mr. Garrison and George Thompson, took part in the

meetings called to protest against the scandalous endorsement of slavery by Scottish Christians. The conduct of the agents of the Free Church excited universal indignation among the Abolitionists. The Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Society sent an eloquent protest, in the form of a letter to the Free Church, from the pen of Judge Jay. How much money the church obtained at the South, as a reward for the silence of its agents in regard to the atrocities of slavery, I do not remember, but it was a considerable sum. Mr. Garrison spoke on the subject in many places in Scotland, with his usual eloquence and power; but he might as well have tried to unlock the grasp of a miser on his hoard as to force out of a church treasury, under such circumstances, the gains of unrighteousness.

In 1867, two years after the close of the civil war, Mr. Garrison, partly on account of impaired health and partly to make what he then supposed would be his farewell visit to his English, Scotch and Irish friends, crossed the ocean for the fourth time. As two of his children were then in Paris, he embraced the opportunity of visiting the Continent for the first time. Crossing the Atlantic in May, in company with George Thompson, who was returning to England from America for the last time, he immediately joined his children in Paris, where he remained, enjoying the Exposition, till June 15, and then, in company with his son Frank and his daughter, Mrs. Villard, he went to London. During the next two weeks he was the recipient of marked attentions from the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, and the latter's mother, the Duchess of Sutherland, who sent for him to come and see her in the sick-chamber to which she was confined by what proved to be her last illness. Then followed, on June 20th, the great public breakfast held in his honor, in St. James's Hall, London. It was a re

markable gathering, and one scarcely paralleled. Hon. John Bright occupied the chair. F. W. Chesson,

Esq., and Richard Moore, Esq., were the Secretaries. The Committee of Arrangements embraced, among others, Lord Houghton, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, John Bright, M. P., John Stuart Mill, M. P., Thomas Hughes, M. P., T. B. Potter, M. P., Prof. Maurice, P. A. Taylor, M. P., Prof. Huxley, Goldwin Smith, William Howitt, and others not less distinguished. Among the guests were Prof. Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Prof. Maurice, Lady Trevelyan, Victor Schoelcher, and many others of equal distinction; also a considerable body of ladies, some of them from the United States, and a large number of ministers of the gospel, of various denominations. The American Minister, Hon. Charles Francis Adams, sent a note alluding to Mr. Garrison's "long and arduous services in the cause of philanthropy," and expressing his regret that he was unable, from the pressure of important engagements, to be present. Mr. F. H. Morse, the American Consul in London, was present, as was also the Rev. W. H. Channing. The Comte de Paris sent an eloquent letter, in which he said: "In receiving a man whose character honors America, I thank you, sir, for having thought of me, and for having counted on my sympathy for all that is great and noble in that country, which I have seen in the midst of such a terrible crisis."

The first speaker on the occasion was John Bright, whose address was pronounced by those accustomed to hearing him to have been one of the finest efforts of his life. It was a most generous tribute, not to Mr. Garrison alone, but to American Abolitionists in general. "To Mr. Garrison," he said, "more than to any other man this is due; his is the creation of that opinion which has made slavery hateful, and which has made freedom possible in America. His name is venerated