are deeply interested in their improvement. This is the head and front of their offending, in the eyes of the West Indians. But who are the sectarians? Including the serious part of the Church of England, it may be said that the sectarians are nine-tenths of the population of the country. They are determined, too, not to be trifled with. A man must, indeed, be unable to see the wood for trees, if he do not see, that the partisans of what the West Indians call sectarians, will introduce into the next Parliament a sufficient number of representatives, prepared to impose on the government the necessity of bringing the question of slavery to the only issue worthy of a moment's consideration-full and complete, and instant emancipation, leaving the question of compensation to be afterwards settled.

MR. THOMPSON'S SPEECH,

Delivered at the great Anti-Colonization Meeting, in Exeter Hall, London, July, 1833. James Cropper, Esq. in the Chair.

GEORGE THOMPSON, Esq. in rising to move the second resolution said:

Sir, before I address myself immediately to the resolution which I have the honor to submit to this respectable meeting, I must claim permission to comment, for a moment, upon what I cannot but designate a cruel and heartless attempt to withdraw our minds from the contemplation of a vast amount of misery inflicted upon 2,000,000 of our fellow beings by the wickedness of man, by directing our attention to the existence of partial and home wretchedness which I am sure we all deplore, and are desirous of mitigating. (Hear, hear.) I will again remind the honorable gentleman (Mr. Hunt) who has acted this unworthy part of what he seems to have forgottten,-although pressed upon his observation year after year, that the best friends of suffering humanity at home have ever been the warm and sympathetic friends of suffering humanity abroad. (Cheers.) If he will take his walks along the paths where benevolence and mercy love to linger, that they may minister comfort and assistance to the miserable, the destitute, and the bereaved, he will find those ministering spirits to be those who have been the readiest to devote their energies to the glorious work of universal emancipation. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Our honorable opponent has, on other occasions, committed the same offence against honor and good breeding. Instead of calling meetings of his own, to denounce the wrongs and wretchedness of our unfortunate factory children, and thus aiming to do the work he pretends to love, properly and efficiently, he satis

fies himself with attending anti-slavery meetings, and seeking to divert the attention of the British public from the slavery in the West Indies or in the United States, by a reference to the oppressed circumstances of a portion of our juvenile population at home. (Hear, hear.) I must confess, I like not the man whose vision is so circumscribed that he cannot see or feel it to be his duty to send his regards beyond the narrow circle of his own neighborhood. Had he chosen the motto of our esteemed friend, Mr. GARRISON, My country is the world, my countrymen are all mankind,' he would not have been found to-day among those who would thwart the honest and philanthropic purposes of our heart, nor have himself been doomed to see a resolution of his own unanimously discarded with indignation and disgust. (Loud cheers.) But the gentleman says he is the enemy of black slavery! Believe it-because he says so-but, that you may believe, it never glance at his deeds. Believe him for his honor; for actions he has none to shew, to prove his hatred of the deed. (Loud cheers.) Was it fair in that gentleman, ignorant as he is of the first principles of the great question upon which our minds are engaged,-ignorant of all the documents upon which we have proceeded,to attempt to overthrow our proceedings? (Hear, hear.) Does he know that a week ago last Wednesday, a public meeting was held for the purpose of forming a British African Colonization Society, for the settlement of free persons of color or their descendants? Does he know, besides, that this meeting is convened for the purpose, amongst other things, of exposing the real object sought in the formation of that Society? I believe, Sir, the gentleman is utterly ignorant of all these matters; and I will therefore venture, with your permission, to inform him and this meeting, of the manner in which this bold and impudent trick was played off.

The Society I have referred to, proposes to be a BRITISH (mind! British) African Colonization Society, to effect the following purposes:-1st. To humanize and civilize the rude inhabitants of Western Africa and introduce commerce and the arts of polished life. 2nd. to extend the knowledge and influence of the Christian religion; and 3rdly. To effect the abolitition of the Slave Trade.

Now, Sir, it is specially worthy of notice, that the per

sons who, above all others, were most likely to feel a deep and lasting interest in the accomplishment of purposes so high and holy, as those which I have specified-if those purposes were to be achieved by holy and honorable meanswere none of them invited to the meeting, otherwise than by an advertisement in the public papers. Nay, more— when a few of them appeared in the room where the meeting was held, though among them was one of the oldest, ablest and sincerest of the friends of Africa, Mr. MACAULAY, (cheers,) they were regarded as persons likely to frustrate the design of the projectors, and were designated, by the Chairman and others upon the platform, as factious disturbers. Not one of the leading friends of Africa, or the abolition of slavery, was invited to take a part in the proceedings of that day; though it was held at a time most favorable to their attendance, viz: when they were in London from all parts of the Kingdom, on purpose to watch the interests of the black man in the British Parliament. Who, then, called the meeting? An American! (Hear, hear.) Who ended that meeting? An American! What was the real object of that meeting, as disclosed in the last resolution? That England should co-operate with America in transporting her colored population.

Mr. BUCKINGHAM-No, not transporting.

Mr. THOMPSON-Sir, I readily grant the word transportation was not introduced; but there lies the wilful error-there is the deceitfulnes of sin-there is the subtlety of Satan. (Loud cheers.) Now, Sir, when we consider that that meeting was called by an American-that from its proceedings were carefully excluded every known and influential friend to the abolition of slavery and the civilization of Africa-that when a few of the friends of Africa went to that meeting, they were treated as opponents-that those friends, without an exception, felt themselves constrained to oppose the proceedings of that meeting-and when, lastly, although the Chairman had again and again declared that it had nothing whatever to do with the American Colonization Society, the only thing absolutely proposed to be done by the Society was to co-operate with the American Colonization Society. I am quite sure that the whole affair will appear, in the eyes of a candid public, as a mean, dishonorable and impudent attempt to decoy the benevolent inhabitants of this country into copartner

ship with a Society, whose principles are so unsound that whenever alluded to by myself on the day of the above meeting, I was invariably checked by the Chairman, and reproved for wandering from the object of the meeting.

My friend, the honorable member for Sheffield, (Mr. BUCKINGHAM,) must excuse me if I say, that the ground he has assigned for supporting this new Society was nothing like that of the gentleman behind me, (Mr. Abrahams.) The latter gentleman's argument was all cotton. (A laugh.) Cotton was the Alpha and Omega of his speech. The planting of cotton trees in Africa is to work the destruction of slavery in the United States. (A laugh.) The argument of my friend, the member for Sheffield, is based upon the possibility of a superabundant free colored population in our own Colonies. Looking through the vista of future ages, he thinks he perceives it possible that there may be an overgrown population of blacks in our dependencies, and deems it exceedingly wise to found a British African Colonization Society in the year 1833, that three or four millions of years subsequently we may be able to send our redundant colored brethren to the land of their ancestors. (Loud laughter.) Now, to show how very early must be the arrival of that period when it will be necessary to transport-I beg your pardon-induce to emigrate, our free colored population, I may observe that in the island of Jamaica alone, with a population at present of 400,000 inhabitants, there are millions of acres which the axe has never cleared, which the spade has never delved, and which the industry and ingenuity of man have never made contributory to his wants. (Cheers.) There are, in our Colonies, resources of subsistence and wealth for a population infinitely larger than that which at present exists in them; and who so worthy to avail themselves of those resources as those who have either in their own persons, or the persons of their forefathers, endured the rigor of an unjust bondage for the wealth and aggrandizement of the whites? (Loud cheers.) It is well known that a great many of the horrors of slavery take their rise in the smallness of the slave population, which induces the needy and rapacious planter to overwork his slaves, and apply those coercive measures which have proved so fatal to their hap piness, elevation and existence. (Hear, hear.) A West Indian gentleman, now upon this platform, is prepared to