imous inn-holder! and shame on the public, that will countenance the impudent brutality.

But I set out to give you a slight account of our antislavery occasion, and the addresses of our noble friends to the good people of Grafton county. It was a capital occasion. A court session had drawn together the flower of the shire. Our fine, intellectual bar, that will rank in talent and honorable character with any in New England ;--our jury pannels, the prime of the yeomanry of a temperance community ;-these, with a considerable amount of merit and eminence ex officio, and the other following of a county assize, making up a pretty full representation of our local public, afforded grand materials for an anti-slavery auditory. Then we had some distinguished talent from out the county. Our ample court house, condescendingly opened to us in the evening, was filled at first ray of candle. A fair proportion of ladies graced the attendance,the clergy from this and other surrounding towns,-and, to add dignity and interest to the meeting, gentlemen advanced somewhat in life, of high judicial station in better times than these,-now retired,-came several miles, in the air of a November evening, to countenance the occasion and hear the advocate of the Negro-gentlemen who, though not professedly abolitionists, and not altogether ready perhaps to allow the colored man his right, if it were thought immediately practicable, yet far above the vulgar prejudice against him that infects our ordinary great, and too sagacious to trifle with the black man's plea. The auditory was, on the whole, one of the finest that could be gathered, and numbered several hundreds. The Hon. S. P. Webster was prevailed on to incur the hazards of the chair. The meeting was opened by prayer from the Rev. Mr. Grosvenor-our own beloved minister being called for, but not not having reached the meeting. A hymn followed-appropriate words, set to music by an ingenious abolition neighbor, who led the singing. Bro. Phelps then offered the following resolution-if I can remember accurately, through the splendid discussion that followed-That Immediate and Entire Emancipation is the only righteous, efficient, safe or practicable remedy for American slavery; and that it was the solemn duty of every American citizen

to address himself forthwith to its consummation, by every christian means. He sustained the resolution in a series of pertinent and forcible remarks for fifteen or twenty minutes; though evidently, to us who knew him, with restrained powers. He was succeeded by Mr. Grosvenor, who spoke about the same time; and though manifestly with intent mainly to pave the way for what was to come after, he rose to high and affecting strains of eloquence. He was especially happy in a comparison of the trifling causes which employed the zeal and talents of counsel in that Seat of Justice, with the unutterable wrongs of two millions and a half of clients, in whose behalf he pleaded. But he forebore, he said, to take the time belonging to his gifted friend, who was to follow him, for whom he hoped the candid hearing of the auditors, as he was sure he would have their hearts.

George Thompson rose before the hushed assembly. They did not cheer him-it is not their habit-and if it had been, they had no such welcome for the advocate of the despised Negro. We have wronged the colored man too long and too deeply to readily forgive him, or to regard with complacency the man who ventures to take up his cause. Had the orator risen for the Polander or the Greek, or in behalf of any honorable or classical suffering, the walls would have rung with enthusiastic acclamation; but it is otherwise towards the advocate of the poor, the despised, the injured, the scorned, and him that had none to help him.' The multitude regarded him in deep silence. Slowly, solemnly, and with wonderful expression, he summoned them to the momentous importance of the subject on which he was entering, and challenged the mention of any that could hold comparison with it, as it bore on the interests of man or the weal' of this nation. After a brief preliminary, he bore away into a stream of argument and eloquent appeal to which I had witnessed no parallel, and of which I can attempt no account. For an hour-it may be two hours-I could form no estimate of the time by its lapse he held the surprised and reluctant assembly in breathless attention. I do not conjecture their emotions or convictions. There were no plaudits—no more than at the defence before Agrippa, or the reasonings before Felix. To some the orator may have seemed beside himself'

'mad' with 'much learning.' Others may have almost been persuaded.' I cannot detail his arguments, or give any-the faintest idea of his impression. I have a dazzling impression on my memory of a portraiture of American slavery-terribly graphic-an exposition of the Levittical Law, in its bearings on ancient servitude and on modern slavery-one which, I think, will forever deter all who heard it, from venturing thither for warrant or apology for the infamous system of American slaveholding :-of a glance at Abraham and his household, marching to the slaughter of the kings-a train little enough resembling a gang of sullen, heavy-footed negroes, goaded to the rice swarm-and still less a coffle of chained men moving through Freedom's capital, at the sound of her national music, to a more dismal bondage in the far south. St. Paul's recapture and remanding of the fugitive Onesimus, was illustrated by a commentary that will effectually warn all our scripture-mongers, who go about vindicating this slavery (which they hate worse than the abolitionists) from the bible, against quoting again from the epistle to Philemon! The utter impracticability of gradual or partial emancipation,--the danger of indulging the captive with a lengthened chain, while you hold him still bound,-the folly of attempting a lingering release of him from his thraldrom, link by link,--and the dangers of immediate emancipation, he portrayed. From the two million and a half of butchers who would be let loose' upon the defenceless white folks, by immediate abolition, he begged leave to make some detachments. First, he begged to detach all the infancy. This would hardly add to the force of an insurrection. Then all the childhood, below the years tall enough to reach a throat to cut it ;-then the decripit age, whose vigor had long been exhausted in slavery's toil, and which even emancipation could not recall;—the mothers rejoicing in their children-theirs at last beyond the reach of the auctioneer and the kidnapper ;---the countless band of sable youth and beauty, with modesty sacrificed and affections offered up on the altar of the white man's shame; then the sick---a host at all times under the 'tender mercies' of the system; the christians---' resisting not evil'---much less rising upon benefactors; and last and least too---the favorite slaves---the 'kindly treated.' All

these he would detach, and be thankful for; and against the revengeful gratitude of the residue, he commended the defenceless master to the strong arm of the law, to justice and to God. Oh, for the pen of a ready writer, to have caught his glorious refutation of the impious slander that the black man was inferior in native capacity to his oppressor! His burning reprehension of our demanding fruit from the tree to which we denied the fertility of the earth, the dew, the shower, and the sunshine; consigning it to darkness and sterility, and then scornfully demanding of it foliage and fruits! I doubt if the stenographer could have availed himself of his .art to arrest his enchanting exclamations, they could be felt, but could not be followed.' I cannot speak of his reading and comments on the fiftieth of Isaiah. Every christian ought to have come to the field upon it, as at the sound of a trumpet. He cried aloud, and he did not spare. He spoke of the south and the

slaveholder in terms of christian affection-declared himself a brother to the slave-master-a fellow sinner-under like condemnation with him, but for the grace of Godof the country-its history, its great names, its blood-bought privileges, and its blood-cemented union; he spoke with thrilling and overpowering admiration, lamenting the stain of slavery upon our otherwise glorious renown. Much as

I was captivated with his oratory and force, it was the sweet spirit of the christian that won most my admiration and affection, it was the spirit of the beloved disciple'— and he comes into this guilty land not to spy out its nakedness, or abundance, or to regard our boasted politics; but in obedience to that solemn command, Go ye into all nations; and to the Lo, I am with you,' we commit him, for protection against the violence of our multitudes and the councils of our chief priests and pharisees.

After he had closed, the resolution was put to the meeting for their adoption. It was read by the chairman with a feeling somewhat below the fervor of the speaker. Still, a very goodly number of hands were raised in its support, and only three were seen to go up in answer to the call for opposition. Three hands!-and these were of gentlemenscholars-bred to the generous pursuits of learning! Before the addresses, scarcely three, beside the few profess

ed abolitionists, would have risen in favor of the doctrines of the resolution.

The assembly dispersed quietly and with the utmost decorum, after prayer by our beloved pastor.

Many abolitionists were confirmed, and many, I have no doubt, made at the meeting. The addresses were spoken of with universal admiration, the cause opposed with moderated and respectful tone. The result will be most happy for the cause. I have only to say that our brethren might come among us again. Another such hearing would assemble thousands, and thousands may assemble in Grafton county without danger of mobs. We have enough of honorable character among the opposition to hold our mobocracy in respectful check. I hope they will visit us again early. This county is an important section of the State. The temperance cause received some of its earliest and most powerful impulses here, and good temperance ground is good abolition ground.'

In haste, my dear sir,—too much to retrench my long and crude letter,-I remain, truly and affectionately, yours, N. P. ROGERS.