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‘ [308] of the public peace? He should be consumed in the wrath of an indignant people for his audacity.’ To this, and to a threat of assassination pencilled on the margin1 of the copy sent him,—‘Keep a sharp lookout for Colt's revolver,’—Mr. Thompson felicitously responded at Worcester: “Those who plead for the American slave are under the protection of Him who hath said: ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper.’ ” Isa. 54.17. But Mr. Garrison's prediction to Father Mathew that violence and2 lawlessness would stalk the land in 1850 as in 1835, had been fulfilled; and the end was not yet.

A pleasurable reminder of the earlier epoch was contained in the subjoined letter, from the author of “The martyr age of the United States,” which crossed the ocean almost simultaneously with Thompson:

Harriet Martineau to W. L. Garrison.

The Knoll, Ambleside, October 23d, 1850.
3 my dear friend: This is just to say that if you should ere long receive £10 by the hands of my friend Ellis Gray Loring, I hope you will accept it for the Liberator, as my very humble offering in your great cause. I don't know for certain that you will get it. That depends on whether I get properly paid by an American publishing firm. I have no reason whatever to doubt their doing their duty by me. It is only that, somehow or other, such payments seldom come in. I can only say that I have done my best to earn the money, and that I wish that it was more.

I have never till now felt that I could offer money to your cause,—sorely as I have for years longed to do so. I have tried to do what I could by the easy method (in this country) of personal testimony, and by writing in newspapers and reviews. Now, I have provided for my own independence,—at least, for some years to come; and I may indulge my longing to throw my mite into your treasury, and that of the Standard. I feel under deep obligation to you for constantly remembering me by sending me the Liberator, and so enabling me to keep up with your movement. How much more I feel towards you for your unflinching and self-denying testimony on behalf of humanity, and of the principle of integrity under every possible manifestation,


1 Lib. 20.194.

2 Ante, p. 256.

3 Ms.

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