f the Establishment
for the principle that a congregation should choose its own pastor,
and organized themselves into the Free Protesting Church, commonly
called the Free Kirk. An appeal had been issued to the Presbyterian
churches of the world for aid to establish a sustentation fund for the
use of the new church. Among the contributions from the United States
was one from a Presbyterian church in Charleston, South Carolina. Just
before this contribution arrived a South Carolina judge had condemned
a Northern man to death for aiding the escape of a female slave. This
incident had aroused horror and indignation throughout Great Britain.
Lord Brougham had commented on it in the House of Lords, and Lord
Chief Justice Denham had characterized it "in the name of all the
judges of England" as a "horrible iniquity." O'Connell had rejected
profferred contributions from the Southern States, and an effort was
made in Scotland to have the South Carolina money sent back. The
attempt failed ultimately; but the agitation on the subject was for a
time very fierce, and gave Douglass and his friends the opportunity to
strike many telling blows at slavery. He had never minced his words in
the United States, and he now handled without gloves the government
whose laws had driven him from its borders.

From Scotland Douglass went to England, where he found still another
great reform movement nearing a triumphant conclusion. The Anti-corn
Law League, after many years of labor, under the leadership of Richard
Cobden and John Bright, for the abolition of the protective tariff on
wheat and other kinds of grain for food, had brought its agitation to
a successful issue; and on June 26, 1846, the Corn Laws were repealed.
The generous enthusiasm for reform of one kind or another that
pervaded the British Islands gave ready sympathy and support to the
abolitionists in their mission. The abolition of slavery in the
colonies had been decreed by Parliament in 1833, but the old leaders
in that reform had not lost their zeal for liberty. George Thompson,
who with Clarkson and Wilberforce had led the British abolitionists,
invited Garrison over to help reorganize the anti-slavery sentiment of
Great Britain against American slavery; and in August, 1846, Garrison
went to England, in that year evidently a paradise of reformers.

During the week beginning May 17, 1846, Douglass addressed
respectively the annual meeting of the British and Foreign
Anti-slave