335 



I should be satisfied if you had but a respectable 

 poll, and merely by the influence of what I scarcely 

 thought this bad world could feel and value in any 

 just degree : — this is beyond all hope ! Yet all my 

 joy, and even my affectionate feelings towards you 

 personally, are absorbed in one consideration, too 

 awful and transcendently important to be mixed 

 with any other, — I mean the effect of this blessed 

 event upon the fate of thousands, nay millions of 

 happy Africans ! Generations will succeed one 

 another in peace and tranquillity, who will never 

 know your name, indeed, but it will be treasured in 



" The bosom of their Father and their God." 



I feel that nothing could give so decisive a blow to 

 the slave-trade, — such a public avowal that even 

 Liverpool can do better without it, as the choice of 

 you, the open and powerful enemy of that trade, to 

 be the guardian of the interests of the town which 

 is supposed to live by it ! If ten righteous persons 

 could have saved a town from destruction, surely 

 1157 will wipe away all reproach; and the rest of 

 the nation will be ashamed to countenance this 

 national sin any longer. 



How deeply do we enter into the sensations of 

 all your family on this occasion ! I trust the sacri- 

 fices which must in some degree be made of domes- 

 tic tranquillity, will be compensated by the unli- 

 mited increase of genuine honour and respect with 

 which you will be surrounded, and the extended 

 value of even your existence. I look far beyond 

 the present moment, and I see one or more of your 



