lavery,
seemed instructed, delighted, and animated. No one could scarcely have
remained unmoved by the pensive sympathies that pervaded the entire
assembly. There were many in the meeting who had never seen a fugitive
slave before, and when any of the speakers would refer to those on the
platform, the whole audience seemed moved to tears. No meeting of the
kind held in London for years created a greater sensation than this
gathering of refugees from the "Land of the free, and the home of the
brave." The following appeal, which I had written for the occasion, was
unanimously adopted at the close of the meeting, and thus ended the
great Anti-Slavery demonstration of 1851.

AN APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WORLD.

We consider it just, both to the people of the United States and to
ourselves, in making an appeal to the inhabitants of other countries,
against the laws which have exiled us from our native land, to state the
ground upon which we make our appeal, and the causes which impel us to
do so. There are in the United States of America, at the present time,
between three and four millions of persons, who are held in a state of
slavery which has no parallel in any other part of the world; and whose
numbers have, within the last fifty years, increased to a fearful
extent. These people are not only deprived of the rights to which the
laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, but every avenue to
knowledge is closed against them. The laws do not recognise the family
relation of a slave, and extend to him protection in the enjoyment of
domestic endearments. Brothers and sisters, parents and children,
husbands and wives, are torn asunder, and permitted to see each other
no more. The shrieks and agonies of the slave are heard in the markets
at the seat of government, and within hearing of the American Congress,
as well as on the cotton, sugar and rice plantations of the far South.

The history of the negroes in America is but a history of repeated
injuries and acts of oppression committed upon them by the whites. It is
not for ourselves that we make this appeal, but for those whom we have
left behind.

In their Declaration of Independence, the Americans declare that "all
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness." Yet one-sixth of the inhabitants of the great
Republic are slaves. Thus t