Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

[360] he said that Mr. Wilberforce approves of the principle of the Society—namely, that the blacks ought to be removed for the advantage of America, as well as for their own?

2. Did Mr. Cresson (aware that it must be considered as the fundamental principle of the American Colonization Society, that there is a difficulty, amounting to a moral impossibility, in the blacks and whites living together in prosperity and harmony, as members of the same free community) make it clear to those to whom he professed to state Mr. Wilberforce's sentiments, that the two classes might and ought to live together, as one mutually connected and happy society?

3. Has Mr. Elliott Cresson made it publicly known in England, that the American Colonization Society has declared that it considers that colonization ought to be a sine qua non of emancipation?

These queries were given to me to make such use of them as I might think proper.

At his urgent solicitation, I visited him the next morning, and sat down with him and his family to breakfast, which was served up in patriarchal simplicity. After an interview of about five hours,—too delightful and too important ever to be forgotten by me,—I bade him farewell, expressing my fervent wishes for a long continuance of his valuable life, and my hope to meet him in that world of glory where change, and decay, and separation are unknown. I impressed upon his mind, tenderly and solemnly, the importance of his bearing public testimony against the American Colonization Society, if he was satisfied that its claims to the confidence and patronage of the British nation were preposterous and illusory; especially as he was constantly quoted as the friend and advocate of the Society. “I offer you,” I said, “no documents or pamphlets in opposition to the Society, upon which to form an opinion of its true character. Here are its Fifteenth and Sixteenth Reports: the former contains an elaborate defence of the Society by its managers, which, in my opinion, is alone sufficient to seal its destiny. Read it at your leisure, and, judging the Society out of its own mouth, let your verdict be given to the world!”

The result of these interviews was that Mr. Garrison¹ brought back with him to this country the original of a Protest against British support of the American Colonization Society, already made public in England, and