ong them and refuse him a fair hearing in consequence. But Garrison
was confident that while Thompson's advent would stir up the pro-slavery
bile of the North and all that, he would not be put to much if any
greater disadvantage as a foreigner in speaking in New England on the
subject of slavery, than were those Abolitionists who were to the manner
born. As to his friend's personal safety in the East, Garrison was
extremely optimistic, had not apparently the slightest apprehensions for
him in this regard.

Well, after due deliberation, George Thompson consented to undertake the
mission to America, and the English reformers to send him, though not
all of them. For some there were like James Cropper, who were indisposed
to promoting such a mission, or "paying agents to travel in the United
States." It was natural enough for Mr. Garrison to prefer such a request
after hearing George Thompson speak. For he was one of those electric
speakers, who do with popular audiences what they will. In figure and
voice and action, he was a born orator. His eloquence was graphic,
picturesque, thrilling, and over English audiences it was irresistible.
Garrison fancied that such eloquence would prove equally attractive to
and irresistible over American audiences as well. But in this he was
somewhat mistaken, for Thompson had to deal with an element in American
audiences of which he had had no experience in England. What that
element was he had occasion to surmise directly he arrived upon these
shores. He reached New York just sixteen days after the marriage of his
friend, the editor of the _Liberator_ to be immediately threatened with
mob violence by the metropolitan press in case he ventured to "lecture
in favor of immediate Abolition," and to be warned that: "If our people
will not suffer our own citizens to tamper with the question of slavery,
it is not to be supposed that they will tolerate the officious
intermeddling of a foreign fanatic." Then as if by way of giving him a
taste of the beak and talons of the American _amour propre_, he and his
family were put out of the Atlantic Hotel in deference to the wish of an
irate Southerner. Thus introduced the English orator advanced speedily
thereafter into closer acquaintance with the American public. He
lectured in many parts of New England where that new element of rowdyism
and virulence of which his English audiences had given him no previous
experience, manifested its presence first in o