y of manners of the worshippers. 'A
ragged set,' forsooth! The slander may be uttered in the city of
Washington, at an anniversary of the American Colonization Society; but
no man, who regards his character for veracity and intelligence, _dare_
publish it in Boston.

The effects of this reiterated abuse are eminently mischievous. It
serves to kindle the fires of persecution, to strengthen prejudice, to
drive its victims to despair, and to increase the desire for their
banishment. 'Tax your utmost powers of imagination,' says one of the
colonization advocates, 'and you cannot conceive _one motive_ to
honorable effort, which can animate the bosom, or give impulse to the
conduct of the free black in this country'! Is this language calculated
to allay animosity, or beget confidence, or suppress contempt, or heal
division, or excite sympathy? Far otherwise. Are there not thousands of
living witnesses to prove the falsity of this assertion; thousands who
adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour, and whose 'motives to honorable
effort' are higher than heaven and vast as eternity; thousands, who,
though their enemies spare no efforts to crush them in the dust, and in
despite of mountains of difficulties, rise up with a giant's strength to
respectability and usefulness? 'No motive to honorable effort'! Perish
the calumny!

Again, they are stigmatized as the 'wild stirrers up of sedition and
insurrection.' This charge is even more malignant than the other, and
utterly groundless. Its propagation, however, tends directly to excite a
persecution which may drive the accused to sedition, in self-defence.
There is no evidence that any free man of color was enlisted in the late
bloody struggle in Virginia, or in any manner accessary thereto. On the
contrary, it was deprecated by our colored citizens generally, not only
on account of its sanguinary acts, but because they knew it would
operate to their own disadvantage by being placed to their account. The
following honorable expression of feeling was made at a public meeting
of the people of color in Wilmington, Delaware, about that period:

'The subscribers, having a knowledge of the alarm which prevails
in the minds of some of the citizens of this place, on account
of various reports which some mischievous person or persons have
circulated, in regard to the colored population, beg leave to
represent, on behalf of themselves and brethren, that having
made inqu