ckade-runners, is not the result of malice, but of
accident,--of most unhappy accident, as I believe. We have not planted
them there for this purpose. They have come down to us among the general
inheritance of an age of conquest, when aggression was thought to be
strength and glory,--when all kings and nations were alike
rapacious,--and when the prize remained with us, not because we were
below our neighbors in morality, but because we were more resolute in
council and mightier in arms. Our conquering hour was yours. You, too,
were then English citizens. You welcomed the arms of Cromwell to
Jamaica. Your hearts thrilled at the tidings of Blenheim and Ramillies,
and exulted in the thunders of Chatham. You shared the laurels and the
conquests of Wolfe. For you and with you we overthrew France and Spain
upon this continent, and made America the land of the Anglo-Saxon
race. Halifax will share the destinies of the North-American
confederation,--destinies, as I said before, not alien to yours. Nassau
is an appendage to our West-Indian possessions. Those possessions are
and have long been, and been known to every reasoning Englishman to be,
a mere burden to us. But we have been bound in honor and humanity to
protect our emancipated slaves from a danger which lay near. An ocean of
changed thought and feeling has rolled over the memory of this nation
within the last three years. You forget that but yesterday you were the
Great Slave Power.

You, till yesterday, were the great Slave Power. And England, with all
her faults and shortcomings, was the great enemy of slavery. Therefore
the slave-owners who had gained possession of your Government hated her,
insulted her, tried to embroil you with her. They represented her, and I
trust not without truth, as restlessly conspiring against the existence
of their great institution. They labored, not in vain, to excite your
jealousy of her maritime ambition, when, in enforcing the right of
search and striving to put down the slave-trade, she was really obeying
her conscience and the conscience of mankind. They bore themselves
towards her in these controversies as they bore themselves towards
you,--as their character compels them to bear themselves towards all
whom they have to deal. Living in their own homes above law, the
proclaimed doctrines of lawless aggression which alarmed and offended
not England alone, but every civilized nation. And this, as I trust and
believe, has been the main