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MR. BORTHWICK'S REJOINDER.

ing himself to the Messiah, when he offered to take upon himself all the guilt of England from the time of Elizabeth down to the present day; and concluded by challenging Mr. Thompson, or any agent of the Anti-Slavery Society, to a public discussion,-each speaker half an hour at a time, the question to be decided by the audience at the conclusion of the debate, and all the expenses to be defrayed by the West Indian body.

Mr. BORTHWICK concluded his lecture at half-past ten o'clock, and the meeting separated soon afterwards, having previously attempted to raise cheers for Mr. Ewart, Lord Sandon, and other individuals.

MR. THOMPSON'S THIRD LECTURE.

Extracts from Mr. Thompson's third Lecture in reply to Mr. Borthwick.

On Thursday evening, September 6, Mr. G. THOMPSON delivered his third lecture on the Evils of Colonial Slavery, in the Amphitheatre, Liverpool, to an audience as numerous and respectable as that on any previous evening, at half-past six o'clock.

SAMUEL HOPE, Esq., took the chair, and exhorted the meeting to give their patient, candid, and silent attention. As an additional motive for their indulgence towards Mr. Thompson, he stated that that gentleman had been laboring for some time under severe indisposition, not unattended with alarming symptoms, a fact which he (the chairman) stated on his own responsibility, not having consulted with Mr. Thompson himself on the subject.

Mr. THOMPSON then rose, and was received with much applause. He spoke to the following effect,-Ladies and Gentlemen,-in appearing once more before you on the present occasion, I beg to announce that I have determined on the adoption of a line of conduct to-night, which I trust will be at once as agreeable to you, and equally creditable to myself, as that which I adopted when I had last the honor of appearing before you. I have thought since that night, that it is not justice to the injured negro, whose cause I have the honor to plead, that it is not just to the various and momentous topics involved in the consideration of the question now before us, that it is not just to so large and intelligent an auditory as that now before me, or those which I have had the honor of seeing before me on former occasions,-nor is it just to myself, constantly to discuss this question in reference to particular individuals who may from time to time stand forward as advocates of other views than those which I felt it my conscientious duty to adopt. I, therefore, shall to-night, with your kind permission, leave out of sight both myself and the gentle

man who on two several occasions, has advocated the other side of the question, and come at once to the discussion of those topics which I think of deeper interest and higher moment than any thing that can concern me, a humble individual, or any thing that can possibly affect the gentleman who appears on the other side. (Applause.) However, Ladies and Gentlemen, before I come to that line of argument, which I have marked out for myself tonight, I shall just glance at one or two statements, made on Friday night, for the purpose of clearing the way before us. It was then stated that we ought to leave this great question to the Committees of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, whose reports are not yet before the public. Now I humbly submit that we have had quite enough experience of the efficiency of reports sent forth by the House of Commons, and by the House of Lords; quite enough of such committees. Parliamentary speeches and reports, and their efficiency, call upon us most imperatively not to waste a moment, either whilst the committees are sitting, or the reports printing and circulating. knowing that the great measure of emancipation has never been advanced a single step by any thing like a voluntary movement of Parliament, but always in obedience to the impulse of public opinion. (Hear, hear.) We have had quite sufficient experience to guide us on the present occasion, without any such delay; with volumes upon volumes before us, touching the character and operations of slavery, why should we waste a single moment till these reports are laid before the British public? [Applause.] Surely it will not be contended, even by the most zealous supporter of slavery, that we have yet to learn what slavery. is? On the showing of my friend himself, we can learn the ancient history of slavery from the Scriptures; we can learn the modern history of slavery from every one who has been in the West Indies; and yet, with this accumulation of evidence from past and present ages, we are called upon to delay expressing our opinion on the subject, until the House of Commons and the House of Lords have put us in possession of fresh information! We shall be glad to add that to our stock of information; but surely we are not to wait till that information is laid before us. [Applause.] I beg to make another remark in reference to an illustration

which was given of the possibility of a negro infant rising from the condition in which he was born to fill one of the highest stations in the colonies. That illustration was, that a slave in the colony of Demerara eventually became a member of the House of Assembly in that island. I beg to remind Mr. Borthwick, (though I am sure it was an unintentional mistake on his part,) that there is no House of Assembly in Demerara; he might, however, have become a member of the Council; it is true that that gentlemen was the child of a slave mother, but who was the known and avowed parent of that child? A West India planter, a gentleman residing in that colony, who, happening to adopt a line of conduct which I wish every planter under similar circumstances would adopt, acknowledged his son, brought him up as such, and raised him to the same rank in society which he himself held. (Hear, hear.) It was only in consequence of that father being a freeman that the child of a slave raised himself to that eminence, which is so boldly adduced, by the gentleman on the other side, to prove that there is nothing in slavery which dooms the child of a slave to interminable bondage. (Cheers.)

I shall not attempt to reply to the comparison which the gentleman drew between me and a certain notorious individual, who, when he came among the sons of God, and was asked whence he came, said, 'From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.' I may so far resemble that personage that I have come here from walking up and down upon the earth; but unless that gentleman can show that our objects are similar, I do not think the comparison will serve his purpose. (Laughter and applause.)

One word in behalf of the missionary Smith. I learned from the report published in the Chronicle, (for I was not there myself,) that Mr. Borthwick said that the death of the missionary Smith was in no way accelerated by the treatment to which he had been subjected in the colony of Demerara. I hold in my hand the substance of two debates in the House of Commons, on the 1st and 11th of June, 1824, on a motion submitted by Mr. (now Lord) Brougham on the subject of the Rev. John Smith, late missionary in Demerara. I beg to refer to page 8 of the substance of

the debate in Parliament. opening the subject, said,

Mr. Brougham, in the course of

'It appears that Mr. Smith officiated in the colony of Demerara for seven years. He had maintained during his whole life a character of the most unimpeachable moral purity, which had won not alone the love and veneration of his own immediate flock, but had procured him the respect and consideration of almost all who resided in his neighborhood. Indeed, there was not a duty of his ministry that he had not discharged with fidelity and zeal. That this was his character is evident even from the papers laid upon the table of that House. These documents, however, disclose but a part of the truth on this point. Before I sit down I shall have occasion to advert to other sources, which show that the character of Mr. Smith was such as I Have described it; and that those who were best qualified to form an opinion, had borne the highest testimony to his virtuous and meritorious labors. Yet this Christian Minister, thus usefully employed, was dragged from his house, three days after the revolt began, and when it had been substantially quelled, with an indecent haste that allowed not the accommodation even of those clothes which, in all climates, are necessary to human comfort, but which, in a tropical climate, were absolutely essential to health. He was dragged too from his home and his family, at a time when his life was attacked by a disease which, in all probability, would, in any circumstances, have ended in his dissolution but which the treatment he then received powerfully assisted in its fatal progress. He was first imprisoned, in that sultry climate, in an enwhoksome fetid room, exposed to the heat of sun This situation was afterwards changed, and he was conveyed to a place only suited to the purposes of torture, a kind of damp dungeon, where the floor was over stagnant water, visible through the wide crevices of the boards.'

If we are told that Mr. Smith was laboring under a consumption, that only makes the matter worse for those who, seeing him in such a state, dragged him from his home without even a change of clothes, so necessary in that sultry climate; it is only the worse for those who plunged a man in the last stage of consumption, first into an uncovered room, and then confined him in a place where the atmosphere was perfectly impure; where filth and stagnant water were seen through the boards of the floor. (Hear, hear.) Let it not be said that Mr. Smith was hale and strong,-let it not be said that he was a healthy man when he went into prison, and was really killed by the treatment he received there; let us acknowledge that he was under the influence of a wasting consumption at the time; and then in what light do the authorities of Demerara appear when they plunge a man, whose guilt is not yet established, into a place so likely to accelerate death,-a place so unfit for his accommodation, if the hand of disease were already upon him? For a period of five or six months was this holy man confined in a noisome prison, and then he was