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

[412] me as a moral being,—for me to abandon their cause, come what may to my person or reputation, would be base in the extreme. It is my exalted privilege to be one of their advocates, and I want no other.

Mrs. Chapman was delighted to hear about our movements in England, and particularly all we had to say about yourself. She is as buoyant and active in spirit as ever, and, if possible, even more arduous in her labors. Noble woman!

There is to be a State Anti-Slavery Convention in New¹ Hampshire next week, and another in Massachusetts during this month, at both of which Rogers and myself are expected to be present, to give an account of that which never existed —to wit, the World's Convention. We shall show it up in its true light, London Committee and all!

And now for a specimen of American orthodox Quakerism, as it relates to prejudice against a colored complexion. Perhaps our mutual friend William Bassett has sent it to you already: if so, you will excuse the repetition. In one of the numbers of the Friend, published in Philadelphia, an extract was inserted from a letter written in London by John T. Norton, (one of the delegates to the Convention), giving an account of the manner in which respectable colored persons were treated on your side of the Atlantic, and of the absence of that prejudice which is so disgraceful to America. Such was the excitement, it seems, created by that little paragraph among the quiet readers of the Friend, that the editor had to come out with the following apology! Hear him!

‘Within a few days past, we have received more than one² intimation, from respectable sources, that we have been guilty of an indiscretion, by inserting, the week before last, the article headed, “ Colored People in London.” In answer we may say, that it was copied from one of our exchange papers, with no other view than as showing the kind of feeling with which colored people were regarded there; and, being unaccompanied by note or comment, it was only by a strained inference that we could be supposed to hold it up as an example for imitation among ourselves. We should be very sorry to be so understood. We are not, nor ever have been, connected with the antislavery societies, and, although among those associated with them are many estimable individuals, and not a few of them in the list of our particular friends, yet we have uniformly believed, that one of the greatest mistakes committed by the antislavery people is the mixing up with the abolition question the ’