Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[254]

Edmund Quincy to H. C. Wright, at Newburyport.

Boston, December 31, 1838.

I received your missive, full of combustible matter, enough¹ to set the whole U. S. mail on fire, in due course. I was well content with the doctrines therein laid down, and should be glad to have the tract printed and circulated. I showed it to Garrison, who doubts as to the expediency of distributing the good seed at the Annual Meeting, as you propose. He thinks that we shall have the imputation of endeavoring to mix up Abolition and Non-Resistance urged upon us vehemently enough, without this measure, which would no doubt be construed into one of offensive warfare. He thinks that it [will] have the appearance of a ruse, to draw people's attention from the business of that meeting to the discussion of the N. R. doctrines; and that it will be best to avoid even the appearance of evil. There will be plenty of fight provided for the meeting, so that your warlike propensities will not probably rust for want of employment. Your tract, we think, had better be published by our Society as we have means, and distributed² as our other tracts will be.

Garrison promises well about the Annual Report, and says it shall be ready in time.³

More dangerous than the proposed new organ was the annually recurring deficit in the Liberator's accounts. Knapp's management of the publication had as usual been most unbusinesslike, and he had further embarrassed himself by carrying on an Anti-Slavery Depository, at No. 25 Cornhill, printing with a generous recklessness pamphlet after pamphlet without regard to returns, and keeping his books in such confusion as to deprive him of his just dues. Add to this that he had married unadvisedly. Already his financial wreck was clearly to be