ent of the coloured
population of Canada," large tracts of land were acquired, divided
into fifty acre lots, and sold to refugees at low prices, payable in
instalments. Sunday schools and day schools were established. The
moving spirit in one of these settlements was the Rev. William King, a
Presbyterian, formerly of Louisiana, who had freed his own slaves and
brought them to Canada. Traces of these settlements still exist.
Either in this way or otherwise, there were large numbers of coloured
people living in the valley of the Thames (from Chatham to London), in
St. Catharines, Hamilton, and Toronto.

At the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1852, Mr. Brown
moved a resolution expressing gratitude to those American clergymen
who had exposed the atrocities of the Fugitive Slave Law. He showed
how, before its enactment, slaves were continually escaping to the
Northern States, where they were virtually out of reach of their
masters. There was a law enabling the latter to recover their
property, but its edge was dulled by public opinion in the North,
which was rapidly growing antagonistic to allowing the free states to
become a hunting-ground for slave-catchers. The South took alarm at
the growth of this feeling, and procured the passage of a more
stringent law. This law enabled the slave-holder to seize the slave
wherever he found him, without warrant, and it forbade the freeman to
shelter the refugee under penalty of six months' imprisonment, a fine
of one thousand dollars, and liability to a civil suit for damages to
the same amount. The enforcement of the law was given to federal
instead of to State officials. After giving several illustrations of
the working of the law, Mr. Brown proceeded to discuss the duty of
Canada in regard to slavery. It was a question of humanity, of
Christianity, and of liberty, in which all men were interested. Canada
could not escape the contamination of a system existing so near her
borders. "We, too, are Americans; on us, as well as on them, lies the
duty of preserving the honour of the continent. On us, as on them,
rests the noble trust of shielding free institutions."

Having long borne the blame of permitting slavery, the people of the
North naturally expected that when the great struggle came they would
receive the moral support of the civilized world in its effort to
check and finally to crush out the evil. They were shocked and
disappointed when this support was not freel