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disgrace which the combined forces of transatlantic and cisatlantic sectarianism had already consummated when Mr. Garrison reached Liverpool.1
The Convention had opened on Friday, June 12, at2 Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, with about five hundred delegates.
Clarkson, in his 81st year, lame and nearly blind, accompanied by his daughter and a little grandson, was escorted to the chair and introduced by Joseph Sturge.
His speech, shorn of one-third—the part relating to oppression in British India, which,3 having been committed to writing, had fallen under the keen eye of the censorship—was solemn and affecting.
The delegates, full of deference and admiration, forbore to applaud the veteran, whose nerves were not equal to the excitement; even the customary cheers for O'Connell were withheld on his entering to make the first address.
On Clarkson's departure, his place was supplied by a temporary chairman, whereupon Wendell Phillips rose to move a committee of five to prepare a4 correct list of members, with instructions ‘to include the names of all persons bearing credentials from any anti-slavery society.’
The question thus raised was, whether the Convention was a self-constituting body.
The American delegates who had reached London some days in advance of the session, found that the Executive Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society had assumed the oversight of credentials, and the authority to determine who should and who should not sit in the Convention.
This was effected by an order to deposit the5 credentials with the Secretary, and receive in return the
Then comes the great and mortal conflict: the dreadful monster, slavery, must be grappled with; and who is sent out to do it? Not man — not the stronger vessel. . . . No! weak, tender, untrained for-the-work, modest woman! And when she appeals to the men against such unheard — of folly and atrocity to the weaker vessel, James Cropper has said—‘It is no use talking, Anne; the men are gone to sleep, and it is impossible to rouse them: you must go forth’ Anne Knight to Mrs. Chapman, Aug. 4, 1840. Lib. 10.174.
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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