Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 4

[75] the anti-slavery sentiment of the new generation. It will impregnate with the true fire the masses of our people. In a word, it will put England in her old and proper position.

The arrival of the President's Proclamation, of the 1st of January, gave me a degree of satisfaction and joy which words cannot express. It confirmed the hopes and fulfilled the predictions in which I had indulged. In spite of all prognostications and appearances to the contrary, I had cherished a confident belief that Mr. Lincoln would execute the decree of Sept. 22. Nevertheless, the suspense was painful. My anxiety is now at an end as respects the fiat of emancipation, and I am waiting to see its fruits, which I trust will be abundant and peaceful.

On New Year's day, I addressed a crowded assembly of unemployed operatives in the town of Heywood, near Manchester, and spoke to them for two hours about the Slaveholders' Rebellion. They were united and vociferous in the expression of their willingness to suffer all the hardships consequent upon a want of cotton, if thereby the liberty of the victims of Southern despotism might be promoted. All honor to the half million of our working population in Lancashire, Cheshire, and elsewhere, who are bearing with heroic fortitude the grievous privations which your war has entailed upon them! The four millions of slaves in America have no sincerer friends than these lean, pale faced, idle people, who are reconciled to their meagre fare and desolate homes by the thought that their trials are working out the deliverance of the oppressed children of your country. Their sublime resignation, their self-forgetfulness, their observance of law, their whole-souled love of the cause of human freedom, their quick and clear perception of the merits of the question between the North and the South, their superiority to the sophisms of those who would delude them, and their appreciation of the labor question involved in the ‘irrepressible conflict,’ are extorting the admiration of all classes of the community, and are reading the nation a valuable lesson.

Friday, Feb. 6th.

¹ I have found constant occupation for William Andrew Jackson [Jefferson Davis's late coachman]. He has been very usefully employed in Manchester, Sheffield, and other places. Last week, he accompanied me in my tour in the west of England, and this week he is engaged in South Wales. Next week he will be in Derbyshire, and will then proceed to Lancashire. I am happy to say, the impression everywhere produced by his