alf, or one third,
or one fourth, or one hundredth part of the whole number in the United
States. He left it wholly indefinite, on the broad charge that
American ministers were slave-holding ministers; knowing, perhaps
intending, that the impression taken up should be of the aggregate
mass of American ministers; when he knew himself all the while that
the overwhelming mass of American ministers had never owned a slave;
and that those who had, were exceptions from the general rule rather
than samples of the whole. It may well be asked how much less sinful
it was to rob men of their good name, than of their freedom? Not
content with even this injustice, Mr. Thompson had gone so far as to
charge the ministers of America with dealing in slaves; _slave-driving
ministers_ and _slave-dealing ministers_, were amongst his common
accusations. Now, said Mr. B., he would lay a strong constraint upon
himself, and reply to these statements as if they were not at once
atrocious and insupportable. The terms used by Mr. Thompson were
universally understood in the United States, to mean the carrying on
of a regular traffic in slaves as a business. The meaning was the same
here, and every one who had heard or read one of his printed speeches,
was ex vi termini obliged to understand this charge like the
preceding, as expressing his testimony as to the conduct of American
ministers generally, if not universally.

Now I will admit that there may be in America, one minister in one
thousand, or perhaps five hundred, who may at some period of his
ministry, when he had no sufficient light on the subject, have bought
or sold slaves a single time, or perhaps twice, or possibly thrice.
But I solemnly declare I never knew, nor heard of, nor do I believe
there exists in all America, one such minister, as is above described;
nor any sect that would hold fellowship with him. He would throw under
the _third general head_ charges of a different kind from the
preceding. Mr. Thompson, when generalities fail, takes up some extreme
case, which might probably be founded on truth, and gives it as a
specimen of the general practice; thereby creating by false instances,
as well as by indefinite accusations, an impression which he knows to
be entirely foreign from the truth. If he, (Mr. B.) were to tell in
America that on his way to this meeting to-night, he saw two blind men
begging in the streets, with their arms locked to support their
tottering steps, while