battle. It was a fearful
resolution on his part. The chances seemed to be all against him. It
was one man against thousands. His victory, however, was complete. His
five great speeches in the business centres of England and Scotland
were not only listened to by thousands, but they went all over the
country in the public prints. They completely changed the current of
public opinion.

Mr. Beecher's first address was in Manchester, which, owing to the
interest of the leading business men of that city in the cotton trade
and the furnishing of ships and supplies for blockade running, was a
seething hot bed of Rebel sentiment. When he arrived in that place on
the day he was to speak, he was met at the depot by friends with
troubled faces, who informed him that hostile placards--significantly
printed in red colors--had been posted all over the city, and, if he
persisted in trying to speak, he would have a very uncomfortable
reception.

He was asked how he felt about trying to go on. "I am going to be
heard," was his reply.

The best description of the scene that ensued is supplied in Mr.
Beecher's own words:

"The uproar would come in on this side, and then on that. They
would put insulting questions and make all sorts of calls to me,
and I would wait until the noise had subsided and then get in
about five minutes of talk. The reporters would get that down, and
then up would come another noise. Occasionally I would see things
that amused me, and I would laugh outright, and the crowd would
stop to see what I was laughing at. Then I would sail in with
another sentence or two. A good many times the crowd threw up
questions that I caught and threw back. I may as well at this
point mention a thing that amused me hugely. There were baize
doors that opened both ways into side alleys, and there was a huge
burly Englishman standing right in front of one of these doors and
roaring like a bull of Bashan. One of the policemen swung his
elbow round and hit him in the belly and knocked him through the
doorway, so that the last part of his bawl was out in the
alleyway. It struck me so ludicrously to think how the fellow must
have looked when he found himself 'hollering' outside, that I
could not refrain from laughing outright. The audience immediately
stopped its uproar, wondering what I was laughing at. That gave me
another chance, and I caught on to it. So we kept it up for about
an hour an