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MR. THOMPSON'S THIRD LECTURE.

feelings of the chairman. (Applause.) As I came to Liverpool uninfluenced by any particular body, I thought I had a right to consult my own feelings on the subject, and, therefore, I claimed, for the sake of my own feelings and those of the Chairman, that we might have a disinterested person in the chair. (Applause.) But when I found that persisting in such determination might, in the least degree, disturb the harmony between the two bodies, I instantly acceded to their wishes, and expressed my perfect willingness to lecture with Mr. Horsfall, or any other gentleman as Chairman on the occasion. (Cheers.) This led me to request that the letter might be read; and as the letter was alluded to on this platform in a manner calculated to prejudice me in the opinion of the meeting, I think it might have been read in order that the auditory might be in possession of the facts. (Applause.) And I cannot but accuse the Chairman, on that occasion, of something like reservation in withholding that fact from the audience, when he well knew that it was not from cowa dice that I objected to lecture before him, but a regard for his own feelings as a gentleman, whom I honor from the character I have heard of him; but I still say that to sit in that chair and not give the whole truth to the auditory, was an act of reservation which does little honor either to his head or his heart. (Cheers.)

Ladies and Gentlemen,-I have now done; I leave the cause in your hands. I believe our treaty with the West India body is nearly at an end. I have only further to say, hear patiently, judge candidly, consider deliberately, and then decide between us; and say whether the arguments adduced for the continuance of slavery, or mine for its abolition, are the strongest. If mine, speak with one heart and with one voice, and declare it for ever at an end.

Mr. Thompson concluded his address at a little after nine o'clock, amidst the loudest cheering and clapping of hands, and the audience soon afterwards quietly separated.

THE SUBSTANCE OF A LECTURE,

Delivered Thursday evening, September 20th, 1832, in the Wesleyan Chapel, Irwell Street, Salford, Manchester, (Eng.) by George Thompson, Esq. This Lecture was delivered by Mr. Thompson soon after Mr. Borthwick, the Agent of the West Indian pro-slavery party, had publicly said that he would follow Mr. Thompson from place to place, like his evil genius'-how far the intention of Mr. Borthwick was effected the result of Mr. Thompson's labors fully demonstrate.

On Thursday evening last, Mr. G. THOMPSON, who for the last three weeks has been zealously laboring in the cause of negro emancipation at Liverpool, delivered a lecture in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Irwell-street, Salford.

The lecture was announced to commence at seven o'clock. The admission was by tickets, for which there was an unprecedented demand. As early as five o'clock the doors were surrounded by a number of most respectable persons, and by half-past six the chapel was crowded by one of the most respectable auditories ever witnessed either in Manchester or Salford. We observed a considerable number of the Society of Friends present. At twenty minutes before seven Mr. Thompson was recognised walking down the aisle, attended by several of his friends, and was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. A few minutes before seven, W. Hill, Esq., the Boroughreeve, entered, and was loudly cheered. Precisely at seven o'clock Mr. Thompson, accompanied by the Boroughreeve and Mr. Peter Clare, left the vestry and ascended the pulpit stairs. Mr. Thompson came to the front of the pulpit, bowed respectfully to the assembly, and was received with immense cheers, which lasted a considerable time. Borough reeve briefly introduced the lecturer, and expressed a hope that during the evening there would be no des

The

monstration of feeling inconsistent with the sacred character of the building in which they were assembled.

MR. THOMPSON said that it was with unfeigned gratification, though with very considerable fear, that he consented to present himself before so very large and respectable an assembly. His gratification was of a very high order, because the present was a strong proof that the interest which was awakened on the subject which was that night to engross their consideration, had not become by any means diminished, but seemed rather to have increased. He wished it might continue to be so. He wished that their zeal in so good a cause might continue to increase till victory was achieved, and that, as they proceeded in their career of mercy, they might leave behind them everything which would sully the honor and the character of the struggle in which they were engaged. He, for one, was more than ever convinced that the cause they advocated required none of the ordinary means of making it popular-none of the ordinary means of defending it-that it was quite sufficient to trust in the high and commanding principles which were involved in the discussion, and to rely on those views which truth, unmixed with any other quality, will bear to the mind, rather than connect it with personal considerations, and make this a conflict for victory in argument rather than a triumph of mercy over oppression. And he trusted that whilst on the one hand he should avoid all compromise of principle, he should on the other avoid the use of those weapons which in some cases might be legitimate and allowable, but which in this were perfectly unnecessary, because the subject, clad in its own character, would make a strong and effectual appeal to the heart. And if he did, when he last had the honor of appearing before an auditory in that place, under the influence of strong feeling, and from a conviction, which at the present time he must again express, that a most unhallowed and lawless—though he believed in the end it would prove to their own cause a most beneficial attempt was in progress to retard the accomplishment of the object dear to all his hearers-if with the knowledge of this fact, and being personally involved in the matter, he did give expression to feelings, and sentiments not perfectly necessary in the advocacy of the cause—let it be recollected that it required no ordinary

measure of Christian charity and self-command to restrain the feelings and check the lips when upon the threshold of giving utterance to sentiments under which men are laboring-and when a cause based upon Christianity, and on whose side are enlisted all the attributes of humanity, was attacked by men who professed to have the same object in view with themselves, and who yet, at every step, were drawing deadly daggers and aiming them at the heart of their opponent. (Applause.) The present was a manifestation of friendship which was, he believed, never witnessed till the men who were the direct foes to the object which they had in view professed, when they were on the eve of effecting their object, to take the work out of their hands-and when it was accomplished, not by the energies of those men but of themselves, would cheat them of their prize and appear before the world as the correctors of those evils which others had seen for years, and in trying to remove which they had been met at every step by the most determined opposition.

Mr. Thompson afterwards stated the course which he intended to pursue in his lecture, and said that as his former addresses had been directed to shew the general evils of colonial slavery-the situation and general character of the slave-the mode in which the system was upheld-by whom and by what variety of means it was sought to palliate its dreadful enormities; so, as that might be the last time he should have the honor of delivering an address in Manchester, he should wish now to do something in the way of summing up the question, by bringing, very concisely and briefly, before his auditory the principal evils which were embodied in the system, to show that not only the general idea of slavery was bad, but that by taking it to pieces and examining its particular parts they might see it was altogether evil-that from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot the monster was nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores. (Applause.)

Slavery, and particularly such slavery as was to be found in the West Indies, cursed the soil upon which it existed, and almost inevitably, wherever it had obtained, whether in our dominions or in the dominions of other powers, had produced barrenness and sterility, and prevented nature from bringing forth her fruits in that measure which other

wise she would, had the course pursued to obtain them been equitable and just. And how did this result? The people of England had pursued a course of conduct at once the most unjust and at once the most absurd, in making it exceedingly desirable for the West Indian planter to send, at all hazards, as much sugar into this market as the ground could possibly create. So fond, indeed, were we of slavery, that we did not grudge some millions and a half of pounds yearly, in the way of direct bounty, to foster a system under which women were flogged, children were doomed to slavery from the womb, and to every description of evil by which they could be degraded and destroyed. He begged to direct attention to the main argument used to delude the public into a notion that they who were endeavoring to thwart the efforts of the anti-slavery society, were the best friends of the negro, and that they only held them in bondage to nurture and prepare them for that liberty to which it was their desire to introduce them. If this argument was sincere, how did it apply to the infant? Was he not fit for freedom when he came into the world? Must a child be trained in slavery in order to enjoy the bliss of liberty? Was that either a human or a rational course? What had the infant done that even before he came into the world a price was put upon him to render the mother of greater value, and that, from the hour he came into this breathing world, he is consigned to slavery bounded only by that place where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. (Applause.) On their own shewing, he claimed liberty for every infant that breathed. (Loud applause.) The argument of unfitness could not apply to them, and the man who took the infant from its mother's breast, and giving it to another to be fed or suckled, then drove it to work for his profit, his ease or his aggrandisement, under the infliction of stripes that mercy wept to see inflicted on a beast,—such a man was not a whit better than he who took his ship to the western shores of Africa and burdened it with the wretched villagers-whom this dastardly planter, knowing nothing of the perils and toils thus sustained, bought and labored in the colonies. (Applause.) Thus were they told that they must not remit the negro beeause he was unfit for freedom, and yet they were daily introducing them into that state which dis