ON CHAPTER VII. N New Year's Day, 1831, Garrison sent forth his first number of the Liberator from his attic at No. 6, Merchant's Hall, Boston. He had made a brief attempt at Brattleborough in Vermont; had begun again at Baltimore, and was there imprisoned for inability to pay fifty dollars, for damage and costs, at the suit of a Massachusetts shipmaster, having libelled him in calling him a pirate for shipping a cargo of slaves. He was released after some weeks' incarceration on the money being paid by Arthur Tappan, a wealthy merchant at one with the Abolitionists. Then he tried Washington, but finally decided on bringing out his paper in Boston. His only associate in the enterprise was his friend Isaac Knapp, of Newburyport. They, with a negro boy to help, did the whole work, the editor himself using the composing-stick. The simple object of the publication was what had to become a mere truism, but then shocked the general reader as if it were a shriek of terrific threatening: "Unconditional emancipation is the immediate duty of the master and the immediate right of the slave:" the purpose emphasised by the editor's determination-"I will be as harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice; I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." So, as Luther stood when he had nailed his theses to the church door at Wittenburg, stood Garrison in Boston, beginning his apostleship, the suffering of derision, vilification, and violence,— civic officers, lawyers, and ministers of the gospel, vying in defamation and outrage, and having at last to accept the grand result of his toils and sufferings, and those of his friends and disciples, and to recognise him as of the noblest of the sons of Massachusetts. On Whittier Garrison's influence was immediate. Heart and soul he was already with him. He too had gauged the iniquity of slave-holding, and recognised the call upon every earnest man to oppose it; and began his work with a considerable pamphlet, entitled "Justice and Expediency; or, Slavery considered with a view to its rightful and effectual remedy, Abolition:" "an able and well-reasoned treatise, touching upon every point then in controversy, and fortified with abundant references to documents and statistics, covering the ground completely." It is so described by Mr. Underwood. Mr. Kennedy speaks of it as only a polemical paper, full of exclamation-points and italicised sentences. Yet he adds "The pamphlet however shows diligent and systematic study of the entire literature of the subject. Every statement is fortified by quotation or reference.” The first edition of the pamphlet, printed at Haverhill in 1833, was at Whittier's own expense; but not long after, Louis Tappan, of New York, one of the early Abolitionists, brought out an edition of ten thousand for gratuitous distribution. On the 4th of December, 1833, the Philadelphia Convention for the formation of the "American AntiSlavery Society" held its first sitting, Beriah Green, president, Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier, honorary secretaries. Lucretia Mott, a beautiful and graceful Quakeress-to be well known afterwards in the Abolitionist movement- —was one of the speakers. "She offered," says Whittier, "some wise and valuable suggestions, in a clear, sweet voice, the charm of which I have never forgotten." A committee, of which Whittier was a member and Garrison chairman, was appointed to draw up a Declaration of Principles. Garrison sat up all night to finish the drafting. When the other members of the committee rejoined him in the grey dawn of the December day, they found him still at work. His draft was accepted almost without amendment by the Convention, and signed by the sixty-two members present, twenty-one of whom were Quakers. For the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1874, Whittier writes on this Convention, of his going and presence there. "In the grey twilight of a chill day of late November, forty years ago, a dear friend of mine residing in Boston made his appearance at the old farmhouse in East Haverhill. He had been deputed by the Abolitionists of the city, William L. Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall, and others, to inform me of my appointment as a delegate to the Convention to be held in Philadelphia for the formation of an American Anti-Slavery Society, and to urge upon me the necessity of my attendance. "Few words of persuasion, however, were needed. I was unused to travelling; my life had been spent on a secluded farm, and the journey, mostly by stage-coach, was really a formidable one. Moreover, the few Abolitionists were everywhere spoken against, their persons threatened, and in some instances a price set upon their heads by Southern legislatures. Pennsylvania was on the borders of slavery, and it needed small effort of imagination to picture to oneself the breaking up of the Convention and maltreatment of its members. This latter consideration I do not think weighed much with me, although I was better prepared for serious danger than for anything like personal indignity. I had read Governor Trumbull's description of the tarring and feathering of his hero MacFingal, when, after the application of the melted tar, the feather-bed was ripped open and shaken over him, until 'Not Maia's son with wings for ears and I confess I was quite unwilling to undergo a martyrdom which my best friends could scarcely refrain from laughing at. But a summons like that of Garrison's bugle-blast could scarcely be unheeded by me who from. birth and education held fast the traditions of that earlier Abolitionism which, under the lead of Benezet and Woolman, had effaced from the Society of Friends every vestige of slave-holding. I had thrown myself, with a young man's fervid enthusiasm, into a movement ... which commended itself to my reason and conscience, to my love of country and my sense of duty to God and my fellow-men. I could not hesitate, but prepared at once for the journey. It was necessary that I should start on the morrow, and the intervening time, with a small allowance for sleep, was spent in providing for the care of the farm and homestead during my absence." He writes further of those composing the Convention : "Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly composed of comparatively young men ; some in middle age, and a few beyond that period. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to comfort rather than elegance. Many of the faces turned toward me wore a look of expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm ; all had the earnestness which might be expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset with difficulty, and perhaps peril. The fine intellectual head of Garrison, prematurely bald, was conspicuous; the sunny-faced young man at his side, in whom all the beatitudes seemed to find expression, was Samuel T. May, mingling in his veins the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys; a man so exceptionally pure and large-hearted, so genial, tender, and loving, that he could be faithful to truth and duty without making an enemy. 'The deil wad look into his face And swear he could na wrang him.' That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose somewhat martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of place, was Lindley Coates, known in all |