e captive's foot but touch, his
fetters of themselves fall off. (Cheers.) To the resistless progress
of this great principle I look with a confidence which nothing can
shake; it makes all improvement certain--it makes all change safe
which it produces; for none can be brought about, unless all has
been accomplished in a cautious and salutary spirit. So now the
fulness of time is come; for our duty being at length discharged to
the African captive, I have demonstrated to you that every thing is
ordered--every previous step taken--all safe, by experience shown to
be safe, for the long-desired consummation. The time has come--the
trial has been made--the hour is striking: you have no longer a
pretext for hesitation, or faltering, or delay. The slave has shown,
by four years' blameless behavior and devotion, unsurpassed by any
English peasant, to the pursuit of peaceful industry, that he is as
fit for his freedom as any lord whom I now address. I demand his
rights--I demand his liberty without stint, in the names of justice
and of law--in the name of reason--in the name of God, who has given
you no right to work injustice. I demand that your brother be no
longer trampled upon as your slave. (Hear, hear.) I make my appeal
to the Commons, who represent the free people of England; and I
require at their hands the performance of that condition for which
they paid so enormous a price--that condition which all their
constituents are in breathless anxiety to see fulfilled! I appeal to
his house--the hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the
world--to you I appeal for justice. Patrons of all the arts that
humanize mankind, under your protection I place humanity herself! To
the merciful Sovereign of a free people I call aloud for mercy to
the hundreds of thousands in whose behalf half a million of her
Christian sisters have cried aloud, that their cry may not have
risen in vain. But first I turn my eye to the throne of all justice,
and devoutly humbling myself before Him who is of purer eyes than to
behold any longer such vast iniquities--I implore that the curse
over our heads of unjust oppression be averted from us--that your
hearts may be turned to mercy--and that over all the earth His will
may at length be done!

* * * * *

INDEX.

ABSCONDING from labor,