object was, in the language of the public advertisement, to 'express the sentiments of the Society in reference to the recent discussion on American Slavery, so far as Mr. THOMPSON is concerned; their approbation of his conduct in the United States; their unabated confidence in him as their Agent; and their unalterable attachment to the great principle of immediate, unconditional, and universal emancipation.' The audience was numerous and highly respectable. Addresses were made by Drs. WARDLAW and HEUGH, and several other gentlemen. The speech of Dr. WARDLAW was one of the happiest efforts of his great and good mind, full of moral sublimity, lovely in its temper, eloquent in its diction, and worthy of all praise. After referring in grateful terms to those friends of the anti-slavery cause in England, who had been most active in achieving the emancipation of 800,000 slaves in the British Colonies, he bestowed the following panegyric upon Mг. THOMPSON:

Amongst those to whom, on this ground, obligation ought to be felt and expressed by us, the subject of the resolution I am about to propose to you, holds no inferior place. He exerted a power over the public mind of no ordinary amount. He brought up the cause in our own city, when it had long languished for want of adequate stimulation. He put new life into it; and he kept that life in vigor till the conquest was achieved. We shall not soon forget the triumphant result of his controversy, maintained in this our city, hand to hand, foot to foot, with the phalanx of the colonial interest-headed at that time by their own chosen champion-but a champion whom, for their own sakes, I forbear to name-as I believe they are all as much ashamed of him as we could wish them to be. With the ability, the zeal, the eloquence, the energy, the steadfastness of principle, the exhausting and indefatigable perseverance of our champion, we were more than satisfied. We expressed our satisfaction; and we expressed it not in words merely, but practically. The most decided and flattering proof that can be given of satisfaction with an agent whom we have employed in one work, is to set him to another. We did so. He had done his duty so nobly in the home department of the great cause he had at heart, that, when we had achieved our object in the disenthralment of the slaves in our own dependencies, and we looked abroad upon the world for other fields of philanthropic effort, we naturally and unanimously turned our eyes to him, believing that he who had done so well at home, would do equally well abroad.'

*

*

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On the ground, then, the broad ground of universal philanthropy, which allows no man to say, "Am I my brother's keeper?" we looked to America. On the ground of the Trans-Atlantic States owing their origin to Britain, and being kindred blood with ourselves, we looked to America. On the ground of their having derived their very slavery from us, and having had it fostered by our example, we looked to Amer. ica. And when thus, in common with our brethren in the Northern and Southern Metropolis, we looked to America, and resolved on a mission of benevolence to that

land, all eyes simultaneously looked to George Thompson, as the man, of all others, most eminently fitted for the charge of the important and difficult trust. We sent him to America. He went with the best wishes of the benevolent, and the fervent prayers of the pious. He remained in the faithful, laborious and perilous execution of the commission entrusted to him, as long as it could be done without the actual sacrifice of lifetill it would have been the insanity of hardihood to have persisted longer. He returned. We hailed his arrival. We privately and publicly testified our approbation of the course he had pursued. The present question is-are we now prepared to retract that approbation? Has the ordeal through which our friend and commissioned agent has recently passed, altered our minds, and disposed us to substitute for it a sentence of condemnation? Are we now ready to cashier him,-to censure him,— to send him to Coventry,―to deprive him of his commission, and declare him disqualified for ever holding another, unworthy of all future service? I express my own judgment in the shortest of all monosyllables: I say, No; and the resolution which I hold in my hand, calls upon you to say, No. I consider the recent controversy as having yielded only fresh ground for confidence; as having fully proved that the challenge he had issued was no empty bravado, but it was founded in conscious sincerity, in the fullest conviction of rectitude of principle, of truth, of facts, of force of argument, and of a fair prospect, not of mere victory, but of benefit to his cause. I shrink not from saying of him thus publicly, what I have said more privately in the Committee, that I consider him, in this as in former controversies, as having borne himself, in every respect, creditably to his character and to his cause; to have established, to the full, his previous statements; to have successfully vindicated his Trans-Atlantie proceedings; to have justified the condemnation of American colonization schemes; and to have fairly fastened the guilt of slavery on the Government and people of the United States; that I consider him, in a word, as having come out of this seven-times-heated furnace unscathed-without a hair of his head singed, or the smell of fire having passed upon him.' If this meeting are of one mind with me, they will accept the following resolution:

Resolved, That, in the deliberate judgment of this meeting, the wish announced by Mr. George Thompson to meet publicly any antagonist, especially any minister of the Gospel from the United States, on the subject of American Slavery, or on any one of the branches of that subject, was dictated by a well-founded consciousness of the integrity of his purpose and assurance of the correctness of his facts-and that the recent discussion in this city, between him and the Rev. R. J. Breckinridge, of Baltimore, nas left, not merely unshaken, but confirmed and augmented, their confidence in the rectitude of his principles, the purity of his motives, the propriety of his measures, the fidelity of his statements, and the straight-forward honesty and undaunted intrepidity of his zeal.

I conclude by saying, that, in consequence of the recent discussion, George Thompson, instead of having sunk, has risen in my estimation, both as to personal character and as to official ability and trustworthiness; and never stood higher in my regard than at the present moment.'

Of Mr. BRECKINRIDGE, Dr. W. said- I cannot but condemn the contumelious and sarcastic bitterness of some of his personalities, and I conceive him to have failed in argument on every point that was worth contending for. His defence of the ministers and churches of America was feeble, inefficient, and fruitless. The facts against him were overwhelming.'

MASSACHUSETTS.

As the message of Gov. EVERETT, of January last, was not laid before the Legislature of this State, in season to be examined in the last Annual Report, it would be unpardonable to suffer that servile document to pass without notice or condemnation, in the present Report. A considerable portion of the message was occupied with the subject of slavery, which was treated in a manner calculated to shock the friends, and to animate the foes of human liberty, universally. In this State, and several of our sister States,' says the Governor, slavery has long been held in public estimation as AN EVIL OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE.' To sustain his assertion, he gravely adds, that the Union could not have been formed, if the incorporation, extension and preservation of this evil of the first magnitude' had not been expressly guarantied to the South by the North And he further adds,

as a point of the highest public policy'!

that every thing that tends to disturb the relations created by this compact is at war with its spirit.' So that whoever undertakes to oppose an evil of the FIRST MAGNITUDE,' and to call for its suppression, is a disturber of the peace, a recreant American, and, in the opinion of his Excellency, may be ' prosecuted at common law.' He soothingly informs the people, that'a conciliatory forbearance would leave this whole painful subject where the Constitution leaves it, with the States where it exists, and in the hands of an all-wise Providence, who, in his own good time, is able to cause it to disappear, like the slavery of the ancient world, under the gradual operation of the gentle spirit of Christianity.' And-with marvellous consistency in order to induce the yeomanry of this Commonwealth to make a truce with oppression, he tells them to imitate the example of our fathers,-the Adamses and Hancocks, and other eminent patriots of the revolution, fresh from the BATTLES OF LIBERTY' ! He might just as pertinently have cited the example of the Apostles, in their attacks upon ancient idolatry, as a dissuasion from the foreign missionary enterprises of the present day! If, as the Governor affirms, the Constitu

tion has nothing to do with slavery, but leaves it with the States where it exists,' then slavery cannot claim any constitutional sanction or support, and is not a relation created by the compact.' Like intemperance, lewdness, gambling, or any other 'evil,' whether of the first magnitude' or otherwise, it may be combatted without disloyalty, nay, it may not be tolerated without great criminality. It may be fairly doubted, whether Gov. EVERETT, if he had lived cotemporary with the Adamses and Hancocks, and other eminent patriots of the revolution,' would have dissuaded them from fighting the battles of liberty,' or mocked them with the assurance that an all-wise Providence, in his own good time,' was able to cause their oppression to disappear-and, therefore, they had better leave the whole painful subject' with old King George and Lord North!

While in Congress, a few years since, his Excellency made a bold defence of southern slavery, in the following style:

'Sir,' said he, addressing the Speaker, I am no soldier. My habits and education are very unmilitary; but there is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a knapsack on my back, and put a musket on my shoulder, than that of putting down a servile insurrection at the South'!!*-The slaves of this country are better clothed and fed than the peasantry of some of the most prosperous States of Europe'!tThe great relation of SERVITUDE, in some form or other, with greater or less departure from the theoretic equality of men, is INSEPARABLE FROM OUR NATURE'! - Domestic slavery is not, in my judgment, to be set down as an immoral or irreligious relation' !!—'It is a condition of life, as well as ANY OTHER, to be justified by MORALITY, RELIGION, and international law '! ‡

If such were the impious sentiments of EDWARD EVERETT in Congress, it is perfectly in character for him, as Governor of this Commonwealth, to say in his annual message—

ABSTAIN

The patriotism (!) of all classes of citizens must be invoked to FROM A DISCUSSION, which, by exasperating the master, can have no other effect (!) than to render more oppressive the condition of the slave; and which, if not abandoned, there is great reason to fear, will prove THE ROCK ON WHICH THE UNION WILL SPLIT'!

* So that a system which is full of all uncleanness, robbery, cruelty, oppression and murder, might be prolonged ad infinitum !

An evil of the first magnitude ' !

'Sir, I envy neither the head nor the heart of that man from the North, who rises here to defend slavery upon principle!'-JOHN RANDOLPH, in reply to Mr. Ev

ERETT.

What are the people of Massachusetts to be told,-by their own servant, too!-what subjects they may, or may not, examine and discuss! What! may he stand up in advocacy of the divine right of SLAVEHOLDERS, and may not they-his own constituents-be allowed to question that right! What! is that relation,' which is inseparable from our nature,' which is 'justified by morality and religion,' and in defence of which the Governor stands ready to shoulder his musket, too delicate, too sacred, to admit of the slightest examination ! What! must freemen consent to be gagged, because tyrants are exasperated at their liberty of speech! What is FREE DISCUSSION a 'rock, which, if not carefully shunned, will dash our Union in pieces! Such are the opinions of our present Chief Magistrate. For intelligent men will observe, that it is free discussion-not slavery-which he thinks ought to be abandoned that it is our remonstrance against the continuance of 'an evil of the first magnitude '—not the evil itself—that threatens the existence of the Union! What more does the Emperor of Austria, or the Autocrat of Russia, desire, than that his subjects shall'abstain from a discussion' of the principles of civil and religious liberty? What more did the mother country require of our Adamses and Hancocks,' than that they should cease to declaim against taxation without representation, and in favor of the inalienable rights of man? If the people may discuss the subject of human rights only when it is agreeable to the feelings of the tyrant-if they are bound to abstain from its discussion when it exasperates him-then farewell to the hopes of a groaning world! Yet-a descendant of the pilgrims, and the every day eulogist of our revolutionary fathers-dares to affirm, in a high official capacity, that we, the people of Massachusetts, are solemnly obligated to carry our patriotism so far as to be voiceless, tongueless, insensate, deaf and blind, though millions of our fellow-countrymen are held in galling fettersthough we ourselves are outlawed, if hostile to slavery, in one half of our country! What aggravates his guilt is, that he wrote his message in full view of those dreadful outrages and