The REV. JOHN ANGELL JAMES said, "I will only for one moment revert to
the resolution.[E] It does equal honor to the head, and the heart, and
the pen of the man who drew it. Beautiful in language, Christian in
spirit, noble and generous in design, it is just such a resolution as I
shall be glad to see emanate from the Congregational body, and find its
way across the Atlantic to America. Sir, we speak most powerfully, when,
though we speak firmly, we speak in kindness; and there is nothing in
that resolution that can, by possibility, offend the most fastidious
taste of any individual present, or any individual in the world, who
takes the same views of the evil of slavery, in itself, as we do. [Hear,
hear!] I shall not trespass long upon the attention of this audience,
for we are all impatient to hear Professor Stowe speak in his own name,
and in the name of that distinguished lady whom it is his honor and his
happiness to call his wife. [Loud cheers.] His station and his
acquirements, his usefulness in America, his connection with our body,
his representation of the Pilgrim Fathers who bore the light of
Christianity to his own country, all make him welcome here. [Cheers.]
But he will not be surprised if it is not on his own account merely that
we give him welcome, but also on account of that distinguished woman to
whom so marked an allusion has already been made. To her, I am sure, we
shall tender no praise, except the praise that comes to her from a
higher source than ours; from One who has, by the testimony of her own
conscience, echoing the voice from above, said to her, 'Well done, good
and faithful servant.' Long, sir, may it be before the completion of the
sentence; before the welcome shall be given to her, when she shall hear
him say, 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' [Loud cheers.] But,
though we praise her not, or praise with chastened language, we would
say, Madam, we do thank you from the bottom of our hearts, [Hear, hear!
and immense cheering,] for rising up to vindicate our outraged humanity;
for rising up to expound the principles of our still nobler
Christianity. For my own part, it is not merely as an exposition of the
evils of slavery that makes me hail that wondrous volume to our country
and to the world; but it is the living exposition of the principles of
the gospel that it contains, and which will expound those principles to
many an individual who would not hear them from our lips, nor read them
from our pens. I maintain, that Uncle Tom is one of the most beautiful
imbodiments of the Christian religion that was ever presented in this
world. [Loud cheers.] And it is that which makes me take such delight in
it. I rejoice that she killed him. [Laughter and cheers.] He must die
under the slave lash--he must die, the martyr of slavery, and receive
the crown of martyrdom from both worlds for his testimony to the truth.
[Turning to Mrs. Stowe, Mr. James continued:] May the Lord God reward
you for what you have done; we cannot, madam--we cannot do it. [Cheers.]
We rejoice in the perfect assurance, in the full confidence, that the
arrow which is to pierce the system of slavery to the heart has been
shot, and shot by a female hand. Right home to the mark it will go.
[Cheers.] It is true, the monster may groan and struggle for a long
while yet; but die it will; die it must--under the potency of that book.
[Loud cheers.] It never can recover. It will be your satisfaction,
perhaps, in this world, madam, to see the reward of your labors. Heaven
grant that your life may be prolonged, until such time as you see the
reward of your labors in the striking off of the last fetter of the last
slave that still pollutes the soil of your beloved country. [Cheers.]
For beloved it is; and I should do dishonor to your patriotism if I did
not say it--beloved it is; and you are prepared to echo the sentiments,
by changing the terms, which we often hear in old England, and say,--
'America! with all thy faults I love thee still!'
But still more intense will be my affection, and pure and devoted the
ardor of my patriotism, when this greatest of all thine ills, this
darkest of the blots upon thine escutcheon, shall be wiped out forever."
[Loud applause.]
The REV. PROFESSOR STOWE rose amid loud, and repeated cheers, and said,
"It is extremely painful for me to speak on the subject of American
slavery, and especially out of the borders of my own country. [Hear,
hear!] I hardly know whether painful or pleasurable emotions
predominate, when I look upon the audience to which I speak. I feel a
very near affinity to the Congregationalists of England, and especially
to the Congregationalists of London. [Cheers.] My ancestors were
residents of London; at least, from the time of Edward III.; they lived
in Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, and their bones lie buried in the old
church of St. Andrew Under-Shaft; and, in the year 1632, on account of
their nonconformity, they were obliged to seek refuge in the State of
Massachusetts; and I have always felt a love and a veneration for the
Congregational churches of England, more than for any other churches in
any foreign land. [Cheers.] I can only hope, that my conduct, as a
religious man and a minister of Christ, may not bring discredit upon my
ancestors, and upon the honorable origin which I claim. [Hear! and
cheers.] I wish to say, in the first place, that in the United States
the Congregational churches, as a body, are free from slavery. [Cheers.]
I do not think that there is a Congregational church in the United
States in which a member could openly hold a slave without subjecting
himself to discipline.[F] True, I have met with churches very deficient
in their duty on this subject, and I am afraid there are members of
Congregational churches who hold slaves secretly as security for debt in
the Southern States. At the last great Congregational Convention, held
in the city of Albany, the churches took a step on the subject of
slavery much in advance of any other great ecclesiastical body in the
country. I hope it is but the beginning of a series of measures that
will eventuate in the separation of this body from all connection with
slavery. [Hear, hear!] I am extensively acquainted with the United
States; I have lived in different sections of them; I am familiar with
people of all classes, and it is my solemn conviction, that nine tenths
of the people feel on the subject of slavery as you do;[G] [cheers;]
perhaps not so intensely, for familiarity with wrong deadens the
conscience; but their convictions are altogether as yours are; and in
the slaveholding states, and among slaveholders themselves, conscience
is against the system. [Cheers.] There is no legislative control of the
subject of slavery, except by slaveholding legislators themselves.
Congress has no right to do any thing in the premises. They violated the
constitution, as I believe, in passing the Fugitive Slave Act. [Cheers.]
I do not believe they had any right to pass it. [Hear, hear!] I stand
here not as the representative of any body whatever. I only represent
myself, and give you my individual convictions, that have been produced
by a long and painful connection with the subject. [Hear, hear!] As to
the resolution, I approve it entirely. Its sentiment and its spirit are
my own. [Cheers.] At the close of the revolutionary war, which separated
the colonies from the mother country, every state of the Union was a
slaveholding state; every colony was a slaveholding colony; and now we
have seventeen free states. [Cheers.] Slavery has been abolished in one
half of the original colonies, and it was declared that there should be
neither slavery nor the slave trade in any territory north and west of
the Ohio River; so that all that part is entirely free from actual
active participation in this curse, laying open a free territory that, I
think, must be ten times larger in extent than Great Britain. [Loud
cheers.] The State of Massachusetts was the first in which slavery
ceased. How did it cease? By an enactment of the legislature? Not at
all. They did not feel there was any necessity for such an enactment.
The Bill of Rights declared, that all men were born free, and that they
had an equal right to the pursuit of happiness and the acquisition of
property. In contradiction to that, there were slaves in every part of
Massachusetts; and some philanthropic individual advised a slave to
bring into court an action for wages against his master during all his
time of servitude. The action was brought, and the court decided that
the negro was entitled to wages during the whole period. [Cheers.] That
put an end to slavery in Massachusetts, and that decision ought to have
put an end to slavery in all states of the Union, because the law
applied to all. They abolished slavery in all the Northern States--in
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; and it was
expected that the whole of the states would follow the example. When I
was a child, I never heard a lisp in defence of slavery. [Hear, hear,
hear!] Every body condemned it; all looked upon it as a great curse, and
all regarded it as a temporary evil, which would soon melt away before
the advancing light of truth. [Hear, hear!] But still there was great
injustice done to those who had been slaves. Every body regarded the
colored race as a degraded race; they were looked upon as inferior; they
were not upon terms of social equality. The only thing approaching it
was, that the colored children attended the schools with the white
children, and took their places on the same forms; but in all other
respects they were excluded from the common advantages and privileges of
society. In the places of worship they were seated by themselves; and
that difference always existed till these discussions came up, and they
began to feel mortified at their situation; and hence, wherever they
could, they had worship by themselves, and began to build places of
worship for themselves; and now you will scarcely find a colored person
occupying a seat in our places of worship. This stain still remains, and
it is but a type of the feeling that has been generated by slavery. This
ought to be known and understood, and this is just one of the
out-croppings of that inward feeling that still is doing great injustice
to the colored race; but there are symptoms of even that giving way.
"I suppose you all remember Dr. Pennington--[cheers]--a colored minister
of great talent and excellence--[Hear, hear!]--though born a slave, and
for many years was a fugitive slave. [Hear, hear.] Dr. Pennington is a
member of the presbytery of New York; and within the last six months he
has been chosen moderator of that presbytery. [Loud cheers.] He has
presided in that capacity at the ordination of a minister to one of the
most respectable churches of that city. So far so good--we rejoice in
it, and we hope that the same sense of justice which has brought about
that change, so that a colored man can be moderator of a Presbytery in
the city of New York, will go on, till full justice is done to these
people, and until the grievous wrongs to which they have been subjected
will be entirely done away. [Cheers.] But still, what is the aspect
which the great American nation now presents to the Christian world?
Most sorry am I to say it; but it is just this--a Christian republic
upholding slavery--the only great nation on earth that does uphold it--a
great Christian republic, which, so far as the white people are
concerned, is the fairest and most prosperous nation on earth--that
great Christian republic using all the power of its government to secure
and to shield this horrible institution of negro slavery from
aggression; and there is no subject on which the government is so
sensitive--there is no institution which it manifests such a
determination to uphold. [Hear, hear!] And then the most melancholy fact
of all is, that the entire Christian church in that republic, with few
exceptions, are silent, or are apologists for this great wrong. [Hear,
hear!] It makes my heart bleed to think of it; and there are many
praying and weeping in secret places over this curse, whose voices are
not heard. There is such a pressure on the subject, it is so mixed up
with other things, that many sigh over it who know not what to say or
what to do in reference to it. And what kind of slavery is it? Is it
like the servitude under the Mosaic law, which is brought forward to
defend it? Nothing like it. Let me read you a little extract from a
correspondent of a New York paper, writing from Paris. I will read it,
because it is so graphic, and because I wish to show from what sources
you may best ascertain the real nature of American slavery. The
commercial newspapers, published by slaveholders, in slaveholding
states, will give you a far more graphic idea of what slavery actually
is, than you have from Uncle Tom's Cabin; for there the most horrible
features are softened. This writer says, 'And now a word on American
representatives abroad. I have already made my complaint of the troubles
brought on Americans here by that "incendiary" book of Mrs. Stowe's,
especially of the difficulty we have in making the French understand our
institutions. But there was one partially satisfactory way of answering
their questions, by saying that Uncle Tom's Cabin was a romance. And
this would have served the purpose pretty well, and spared our blushes
for the model republic, if the slaveholders themselves would only
withhold their testimony to the truth of what we were willing to let
pass as fiction. But they are worse than Mrs. Stowe herself, and their
writings are getting to be quoted here quite extensively. The _Moniteur_
of to-day, and another widely-circulated journal that lies on my table,
both contain extracts from those extremely incendiary periodicals, _The
National Intelligencer_, of February 11, and _The N.O. Picayune_, of
February 17. The first gives an auctioneer's advertisement of the sale
of "a negro boy of eighteen years, a negro girl aged sixteen, three
horses, saddles, bridles, wheelbarrows," &c. Then follows an account of
the sale, which reads very much like the description, in the dramatic
_feuilletons_ here, of a famous scene in the _Case de l'Oncle Tom_, as
played at the _Ambigu Comique_. The second extract is the advertisement
of "our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. M.C.G.," who presents his "respects
to the inhabitants of O. and the neighbouring parishes," and "informs
them that he keeps a fine pack of dogs trained to catch negroes," &c. It
is painful to think that there are men in our country who will write,
and that there are others found to publish, such tales as these about
our peculiar institution. I put it to Mr. G., if he thinks it is
patriotic. As a "fellow-citizen," and in his private relations, G. may
be an estimable man, for aught I know, a Christian and a scholar, and an
ornament to the social circles of O. and the neighboring parishes. But
as an author, G. becomes public property, and a fair theme for
criticism; and in that capacity, I say G. is publishing the shame of his
country. I call him G., without the prefatory Mister, not from any
personal disrespect, much as I am grieved at his course as a writer, but
because he is now breveted for immortality, and goes down to posterity,
like other immortals, without titular prefix.' [Cheers.] Now, here is
where you get the true features of slavery. What is the reason that the
churches, as a general thing, are silent--that some of them are
apologists, and that some, in the extreme Southern States, actually
defend slavery, and say it is a good institution, and sanctioned by
Scripture? It is simply this--the overwhelming power of the slave
system; and whence comes that overwhelming power? It comes from its
great influence in the commercial world. [Hear!] Until the time that
cotton became so extensively an article of export, there was not a word
said in defence of slavery, as far as I know, in the United States. In
1818, the Presbyterian General Assembly passed resolutions unanimously
on the subject of slavery, to which this resolution is mildness itself;
and not a man could be found to say one word against it. But cotton
became a most valuable article of export. In one form and another, it
became intimately associated with the commercial affairs of the whole
country. The northern manufacturers were intimately connected with this
cotton trade, and more than two thirds raised in the United States has
been sold in Great Britain; and it is this cotton trade that supports
the whole system. That you may rely upon. The sugar and rice, so far as
the United States are concerned, are but small interests. The system is
supported by this cotton trade, and within two days I have seen an
article written with vigor in the _Charleston Mercury_, a southern paper
of great influence, saying, that the slaveholders are becoming isolated,
by the force of public opinion, from the rest of the world. They are
beginning to be regarded as inhuman tyrants, and the slaves the victims
of their cruelty; but, says the writer, just so long as you take our
cotton, we shall have our slaves. Now, you are as really involved in
this matter as we are--[Hear, hear!]--and if you have no other right to
speak on the subject, you have a right to speak from being yourselves
very active participators in the wrong. You have a great deal of feeling
on the subject, honorable and generous feeling, I know--an earnest,
philanthropic, Christian feeling; but if you have nothing to do, that
feeling will all evaporate, and leave an apathy behind. Now, here is
something to be done. It may be a small beginning, but, as you go
forward, Providence will develop other plans, and the more you do, the
further you will see. I am happy to know that a beginning has been made.
There are indications that a way has been so opened in providence that
this exigency can be met. Within the last few years, the Chinese have
begun to emigrate to the western parts of the United States. They will
maintain themselves on small wages; and wherever they come into actual
competition with slave labor, it cannot compete with them. Very many of
the slaveholders have spoken of this as a very remarkable indication. If
slavery had been confined to the original slave states, as it was
intended, slavery could not have lived. It was the intention that it
should never go beyond those boundaries. Had this been the case, it
would increase the number of slaves so much that they would have been
valueless as articles of property. I must say this for America, that the
slaves increase in the slave states faster than the white people; and it
shows that their physical condition is better than was that of the
slaves at the West Indies, or in Cuba, where the number actually
diminished. We must have more slave territories to make our slaves
valuable, and there was the origin of that iniquitous Mexican war,
whereby was added the vast territory of Texas; and then it was the
intention to make California a slave state; but, I am happy to say, it
has been received into the Union as a free state, and God grant it may
continue so. [Hear, hear!] What has been the effect of this expansion of
slave territory? It has doubled the value of slaves. Since I can
remember, a strong slave man would sell for about four hundred or six
hundred dollars--that is, about one hundred pounds; but now, during the
present season, I have known instances in which a slave man has been
sold for two hundred and thirty pounds. There are more slaves raised in
Virginia and Maryland than they can use in those states in labor, and,
therefore, they sell them at one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred
pounds, as the case may be, for cash. All that Mrs. Tyler intimates in
that letter about slavery in America, and the impression it is
calculated and intended to convey, that they treat their slaves so well,
and do not separate their families, and so forth, is all mere humbug.
[Laughter and cheers.] It is well known that Virginia has more profit
from selling negroes than from any other source. The great sources of
profit are tobacco and negroes, and they derive more from the sale of
negroes than tobacco. You see the temptation this gives to avarice.
Suppose there is a man with no property, except fifteen or twenty negro
men, whom he can sell, each one for two hundred pounds, cash; and he has
as many negro women, whom he can sell for one hundred and fifty pounds,
cash, and the children for one hundred pounds each: here is a temptation
to avarice; and it is calculated to silence the voice of conscience; and
it is the expansion of the slave territory, and the immense mercantile
value of the cotton, that has brought so powerful an influence to bear
on the United States in favor of slavery. [Hear, hear.] Now, as to free
labor coming into competition with slave labor: You will see, that when
the price of slaves is so enormous, it requires an immense outlay to
stock a plantation. A good plantation would take two hundred, or three
hundred hands. Now, say for every hand employed on this plantation, the
man must pay on an average two hundred pounds, which is not exorbitant
at the present time. If he has to pay at this rate, what an immense
outlay of capital to begin with, and how great the interest on that sum
continually accumulating! And then there is the constant exposure to
loss. These plantation negroes are very careless of life, and often
cholera gets among them, and sweeps off twenty-five or thirty in a few
days; and then there is the underground railroad, and, with all the
precautions that can be taken, it continues to work. And now you see
what an immense risk, and exposure to loss, and a vast outlay of
capital, there is in connection with this system. But, if a man takes a
cotton farm, and can employ Chinese laborers, he can get them for one or
two shillings a day, and they will do the work as well, if not better
than negroes, and there is no outlay or risk. [Hear, hear!]. If good
cotton fields can be obtained, as they may in time, here is an opening
which will tend to weaken the slave system. If Christians will
investigate this subject, and if philanthropists generally will pursue
these inquiries in an honest spirit, it is not long before we shall see
a movement throughout the civilized world, and the upholders of slavery
will feel, where they feel most acutely--in their pockets. Until
something of this kind is done, I despair of accomplishing any great
amount of good by simple appeals to the conscience and right principle.
There are a few who will listen to conscience and a sense of right, but
there are unhappily only a few. I suppose, though you have good
Christians here, you have many who will put their consciences in their
pockets. [Hear, hear!] I have known cases of this kind. There was a
young lady in the State of Virginia who was left an orphan, and she had
no property except four negro slaves, who were of great commercial
value. She felt that slavery was wrong, and she could not hold them. She
gave them their freedom--[cheers]--and supported herself by teaching a
small school. [Cheers.] Now, notwithstanding all the unfavorable things
we see--notwithstanding the dark cloud that hangs over the country,
there are hopeful indications that God has not forgotten us, and that he
will carry on this work till it is accomplished. [Hear!] But it will be
a long while first, I fear; and we must pray, and labor, and persevere;
for he that perseveres to the end, and he only, receives the crown. Now,
there are very few in the United States who undertake to defend slavery,
and say it is right. But the great majority, even of professors of
religion, unite to shield it from aggression. 'It is the law of the
land,' they say, 'and we must submit to it.' It seems a strange doctrine
to come from the lips of the descendants of the Puritans, those who
resisted the law of the land because those laws were against their
conscience, and finally went over to that new world, in order that they
might enjoy the rights of conscience. How would it have been with the
primitive church if this doctrine had prevailed? There never would have
been any Christian church, for that was against the laws of the land. In
regard to the distribution of the Bible, in many states the laws
prohibit the teaching of slaves, and the distribution of the Bible is
not allowed among them. The American Bible Society does not itself take
the responsibility of this. It leaves the whole matter to the local
societies in the several states, and it is the local societies that take
the responsibility. Well, why should we obey the law of the land in
South Carolina on this subject, and disobey the law of the land in
Italy? But our missionary societies and Bible societies send Bibles to
other parts of the world, and never ask if it is contrary to the law of
these lands, and if it is, they push it all the more zealously. They
send Bibles to Italy and Spain, and yet the Bible is prohibited by those
governments. The American Tract Society and the American Sunday School
Union allow none of their issues to utter a syllable against slavery.
They expunge even from their European books every passage of this kind,
and excuse themselves by the law and the public sentiment. So are the
people taught. There has been a great deal said on the subject of
influence from abroad; but those who talk in that way interfered with
the persecution of the Madiai, and remonstrated with the Tuscan
government. We have had large meetings on the subject in New York, and
those who refuse the Bible to the slave took part in that meeting, and
did not seem to think there was any inconsistency in their conduct.
"The Christian church knows no distinction of nations. In that church
there is neither Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but
all are one in Christ; and whatever affects one part of the body affects
the other, and the whole Christian church every where is bound to help,
and encourage, and rebuke, as the case may require. The Christian church
is every where bound to its corresponding branch in every other country;
and thus you have, not only a right, but it is your duty, to consider
the case of the American slave with just the same interest with which
you consider the cause of the native Hindoo, when you send out your
missionaries there, or with which you consider Madagascar; and to
express yourselves in a Christian spirit, and in a Christian way
continually, till you see that your admonitions have had a suitable
influence. I do not doubt what you say, that you will receive with great
pleasure men who come from the United States to promote the cause of
temperance, and you may have the opportunity of showing your sincerity
before long; and the manner in which you receive them will have a very
important bearing on the subject of slavery. [Cheers.] I have not the
least doubt you will hail with joy those who will come across the
Atlantic to advance and promote still more earnestly those noble
institutions, the ragged schools and the ragged churches. [Cheers.] The
men who want to do good at home are the men who do good abroad; and the
same spirit of Christian liberality that leads you to feel for the
American slave will lead you to care for your own poor, and those in
adverse circumstances in your own land, I would ask, Is it possible,
then, that admonition and reproof given in a Christian spirit, and by a
Christian heart, can fail to produce a right influence on a Christian
spirit and a Christian heart? I think the thing is utterly impossible;
and that if such admonitions as are contained in the resolution,
conceived in such a spirit, and so kindly expressed--if they are not
received in a Christian spirit, it is because the Christian spirit has
unhappily fled. I can answer for myself, at least, and many of my
brethren, that it will be so; and, so far from desiring you to withhold
your expressions on account of any bad feeling that they might excite, I
wish you to reiterate them, and reiterate them in the same spirit in
which they are given in this resolution; for I believe that these
expressions of impatience and petulance represent the feelings of very
few. Who is it that always speaks first? The angry man, and it comes out
at once; but the wise man keeps it in till afterwards; and it will not
be long before you will find, that whatever you say in a Christian
spirit will be responded to on the other side of the water. Now, I
believe our churches have neglected their duty on this subject, and are
still neglecting it. Many do not seem to know what their duty is. Yet I
believe them to be good, conscientious men, and men who will do their
duty when they know what it is. Take, for example, the American Board of
Foreign Missions. There are not better men, or more conscientious men,
on the face of the earth, or men more sincerely desirous of doing their
duty; yet, in some things, I believe they are mistaken. I think it would
be better to throw over the very few churches connected with the Board
which are slaveholding, than to endeavor to sustain them, and to have
all this pressure of responsibility still upon them. But yet they are
pursuing the course which they conscientiously think to be right.
Christian admonition will not be lost upon them.[H] I will say the same
of the American Home Missionary Society. They have little to do with
slavery, as I have already remarked. Many think they ought not to say
any thing upon the subject, because they cannot do so without weakening
their influence. But then this question comes: If good men do not speak,
who will?--[Hear, hear!]--and, as our Savior said in regard to the
children that shouted, Hosannah, 'If these should hold their peace, the
stones would immediately cry out.' It is in consequence of their silence
that stones have begun to cry out, and they rebuke the silence and
apathy of good men; and this is made an argument against religion, which
has had effect with unthinking people; so I think it absolutely
necessary that men in the church, on that very ground, should speak out
their mind on this great subject at whatever risk--[cheers]--and they
must take the consequences. In due time God will prosper the right, and
in due time the fetters will fall from every slave, and the black man
will have the same privileges as the white. [Applause.]"
ROYAL HIGHLAND SCHOOL SOCIETY DINNER, AT THE FREEMASON'S TAVERN,
LONDON--MAY 14.
The Chairman, Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, gave "The health of her Grace the
Duchess of Sutherland, and the noble patronesses of the Society," which
was received with great applause. It was extremely gratifying, he said,
to find a lady, belonging to one of the most ancient and noblest
families of the kingdom, displaying so great an interest in their
institution. [Cheers.] Not the least of their obligations to her Grace
was the opportunity she had given them to offer their respects to a
lady, remarkable alike for her genius and her philanthropy, who had come
from across the Atlantic, and who, by her philanthropic exertions in the
cause of negro emancipation, had enlisted the feelings and called forth
the sympathies of thousands and tens of thousands on both sides of the
ocean. [Tremendous cheering.] She had shown that the genius, and
talents, and energies, which such a cause inspired, had created a
species of freemasonry throughout the world; it had set aside
nationalities, and bound two nations together which the broad Atlantic
could not sever; and created a union of sentiment and purpose which he
trusted would continue till the great work of negro emancipation had
been finally accomplished. [Cheers.]
PROFESSOR STOWE responded to the allusion which had been made to Mrs.
Stowe, and was greeted with hearty applause. He said he had read in his
childhood the writings of Sir Walter Scott, and thus became intensely
interested in all that pertained to Scotland. [Cheers.] He had read,
more recently, his Life of Napoleon, and also Sir Archibald Alison's
History of Europe. [Protracted cheers.] But he certainly never expected
to be called upon to address such an assembly as that, and under such
circumstances. Nothing could exceed the astonishment which was felt by
himself and Mrs. Stowe at the cordiality of their reception in every
part of Great Britain, from persons of every rank in life. [Cheers.]
Every body seemed to have read her book. [Hear, hear! and loud cheers.]
Everyone seemed to have been deeply interested, [cheers,] and disposed
to return a full-hearted homage to the writer. But all she claimed
credit for was truth, and honesty, and earnestness of purpose. He had
only to add that he cordially thanked the Royal Highland School Society
for the kindness which induced them to invite him and Mrs. Stowe to be
present that evening. [Cheers.] The work in which the society was
engaged was one that they both held dear, and in which they felt the
deepest interest, inasmuch as that object was to promote the education
of youth among those whose poverty rendered them unable to provide the
means of education for themselves. [Hear, hear!] In such works as that
they had themselves for most of their lives been diligently engaged.
[Cheers.]