TROUBLE FOR THE UNITED STATES. 181 III. THI THIS World's Convention had a deeper meaning than any of the men or women present dreamed of then, unless it may have been the instigators and abettors of a deep and well-laid scheme on the part of politicians, to create trouble for the United States. Let us glance for a while at the course England took towards us twenty years later, after her statesmen and nobles had raised the " negro indignation" against the United States. We Americans cheated ourselves most egregiously when we thought England-once the head of the slave-trade, and only a few years ago the front of the abolitionism of the world— would turn her slavery-hating back on the only organized band of slavery propagandism on the earth! Poor fools we! Just as though the British aristocracy(the true name for the British Government)-meant anything but interference and trouble for us, when her Grace the Duchess of Sutherland chaperoned the gifted Harriet Beecher Stowe through the court of her Majesty, simply because Mrs. It is a great pleasure to meet so many Americans here on this grand occasion. I never looked forward to a public meeting with so much hope. I well remem. ber, many years ago, when the first efforts were made by the friends of liberty for the suppression of the slave-trade. It was a dark day then for the world; and, although philanthropists are quite apt to be too sanguine, yet who in this assembly ever expected to see such a day as this? It is a very sublime spectacle to see this representation of the philanthropy and piety of the world. What can be more grand than to contemplate the object which has called this Convention together? And that idea of O'Connell's was so fine-that we would elevate the whole human race to the possession of liberty-it is an affecting thought. "But you will come and see me, I trust; I want to converse with you about America, your authors, your scenery, your great men. I shall be most happy to see you at any time you can make it convenient to call. Do not think that age has quite frozen up my heart. Indeed, if it had, I think this Convention would make it green as spring-time again." I did see her again-often; and her grand and symmetrical character became to me more and more sublime and beautiful. 182 ANTI SLAVERY MEETINGS IN ENGLAND. Stowe, by writing a great dramatic novel against slavery, could be made a cat's-paw for pulling the chestnuts of the British aristocracy out of the fire! Yes, abolitionism suited the purposes of the British aristocracy just then; and lords and ladies swarmed at negro-emancipation gatherings at Exeter Hall. On all such occasions three standing jokes were played off, to the infinite amusement of dukes and duchesses,-duchesses more particularly. First. There must be a live American negro,—the blacker the better, sometimes; but they generally got one as little black as possible, and an octoroon threw them into the highest state of subdued frenzy admissible in the upper classes. The aforesaid negro must have escaped from the indescribable horrors and barbarities of slavery in the Southern States,-gashed, manacled-(if he showed the manacles, so much the better)—a sample of American barbarism, and a burning shame on the otherwise fair cheek of the goddess of American Liberty. "Oh, yes," said my Lord Brougham; "nothing stands in your way now but negro slavery. Abolish that, and every heart in England is with you." Second. At these Exeter Hall meetings they must have a live American abolitionist,-once a slaveholder who had emancipated his slaves. Here they found their man in the noble Judge Birney, as in the first they found a splendid specimen of a runaway octoroon in Frederick Douglass, Esq.,-the black Douglass, and who, by-the-by made a better speech by far than any aristocrat in England. Third, and last of all, some ecclesiastical gentleman bestowed upon the proceedings "the benediction." This would have been well enough,-certainly so far as the benediction was concerned,-had not future events proved beyond a doubt, that, at the very moment these curious things were occurring, the whole prestige of the British empire was invoked to sanctify and adorn a secret spirit of hostility to the Government of the United States, and that the solemnities of our holy religion were also invoked in the same cause. POETS IN ENGLAND TO AMERICA'S POETS. 183 But to my unpractised eye it looked at the time very much as later events have shown it,-a thorough hatred of America by the ruling classes of England. AT IV. T one time Lord Brougham presided; again, O'Connell ; and again, the venerable Thomas Clarkson: they even got his Royal Highness Prince Albert to do it once, on a somewhat narrower scale, where even tender young duchesses could attend with impunity (the American negro always being present), and being fortified with a supply of highly-perfumed kerchiefs, the young duchesses managed generally to live it through, and revive after reaching the open air! These farces were played off all through the British Islands; and the poor British people-who, from long habit, I suppose, go where their betters" go, when allowed to-joined in the movement, and "American anti-slavery societies" were everywhere established. Even chambermaids and factory girls contributed to raise a fund to send "English missionaries" over here "to enlighten the North about the duty of the South to abolish slavery." Some of these scenes were sufficiently vulgar; but they were occasionally got up in fine taste. One occasion I recal with the highest pleasure, which, although ostensibly an antislavery dinner, was limited chiefly in its company to the literary men of London.* * Among the good things of that evening was a short poem, written for the occasion, by William Beattie, M. D., the gifted and well-known author of Scotland Illustrated, etc. I do not know if it has been published. I remember a few of the stanzas. It is an address from "England's Poets to the Poets of America." Your Garrison has fann'd the flame, Child, Chapman, Pierpont, caught the fire; And, roused at Freedom's hallowed name, Hark! Bryant, Whittier, strike the lyre; While here, hearts myriad trumpet-toned 184 ORIGIN OF THE CONVENTION. V. T was a noble enthusiasm among the people; but it was (anybody could see through it, for it was the veriest gauze) all an aristocratic sham. It did not mean anything for human freedom. It meant hostility to the United States. It was got up by British politicians. Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington had no part or parcel in it, unless it were through sheer courtesy to the men of their class. This English crusade against the United States, was got up by the British aristocracy in sheer animosity against our Government, not so much, perhaps, against our people, chiefly because they cared nothing about them. It was our system of government they hated, because it was a standing, growing, and luminous reproof of the blighting and degrading system of England, which starves the masses of her people in order that the privileged few may die of surfeit. Blackwood's Magazine, an authority not likely to be charged with hostility towards the British oligarchy, nor with favoritism towards our Republic, said, in speaking on this same subject in the same year (1840)— "It were well if some ingenious optician could invent an All England was ablaze about American slavery and its abolition. CHANGE IN BRITISH PHILANTHROPY. 185 instrument, which would remedy the defects of that longsighted benevolence which sweeps the field for distant objects of compassion, while it is as blind as a bat to the misery around its own doors." Well said! I saw and felt it all when I went through the streets, and lanes, and cellars of Manchester, where fifty thousand blanched skeleton-men, women, and children, were slowly or rapidly dying of starvation. In that city, also, vast antislavery meetings were got up to induce the North to put down slavery in the South. These assemblages were invariably under the auspices of the aristocracy, and they were held where the police were stationed at the doorways to drive off the famishing, lest their plaint of hunger might salute the ears of their bloated task-masters. There was no lack of cotton in Manchester then. There was something worse than that. It was the same old complaint you will find in any part of England,—the poor overworked and under-fed, to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. I went up to Paisley, where more than half the population were being fed from soup-kettles, and pretty poor soup at that. There, too, the abolition of American slavery seemed to be the only thing which drew forth the sympathies, or reached the charity of the aristocratic classes. So everywhere in England, it was "that long-sighted benevolence, sweeping the distant horizon for objects of compassion, but blind as a bat to the misery at the door." It was not so in 1840 alone. I have been in England several times since, but I never saw a good year for the poor of that oppressive empire. To show that this was all the poorest of shams, and that England owes us no good will, let us step from 1840 to 1861. We see all things the same in England to this day, except in the "negro business." Here all is changed. British sympathy is now shifted from the slave, and lavished on his master; from "moral pocket-handkerchiefs, and religious fine |