d to state the
following particulars: In December last, a few ladies met in this place
to consider the best plan of obtaining signatures in Liverpool to an
address to the women of America on the subject of negro slavery, in
substance coinciding with the one so nobly proposed and carried forward
by Lord Shaftesbury. At this meeting it was suggested that it would be a
sincere gratification to many if some testimonial could be presented to
Mrs. Stowe which would indicate the sense, almost universally
entertained, that she had been the instrument in the hands of God of
arousing the slumbering sympathies of this country in behalf of the
suffering slave. It was felt desirable to render the expression of such
a feeling as general as possible; and to effect this it was resolved
that a subscription should be set on foot, consisting of contributions
of one penny and upwards, with a view to raise a testimonial, to be
presented to Mrs. Stowe by the ladies of Liverpool, as an expression of
their grateful appreciation of her valuable services in the cause of the
negro, and as a token of admiration for the genius and of high esteem
for the philanthropy and Christian feeling which animate her great work,
Uncle Tom's Cabin. It ought, perhaps, to be added, that some friends,
not residents of Liverpool, have united in this tribute. As many of the
ladies connected with the effort to obtain signatures to the address may
not be aware of the whole number appended, they may be interested in
knowing that they amounted in all to twenty-one thousand nine hundred
and fifty-three. Of these, twenty thousand nine hundred and thirty-six
were obtained by ladies in Liverpool, from their friends either in this
neighborhood or at a distance; and one thousand and seventeen were sent
to the committee in London from other parts, by those who preferred our
form of address. The total number of signatures from all parts of the
kingdom to Lord Shaftesbury's address was upwards of five hundred
thousand."

PROFESSOR STOWE then said, "On behalf of Mrs. Stowe I will read from her
pen the response to your generous offering: 'It is impossible for me to
express the feelings of my heart at the kind and generous manner in
which I have been received upon English shores. Just when I had begun to
realize that a whole wide ocean lay between me and all that is dearest
to me, I found most unexpectedly a home and friends waiting to receive
me here. I have had not an hour in whi