Transcribed from [1844?] Aylott and Jones edition by DavidPrice,
A Letter
TO THE MEMBERS AND FRIENDS
OF THE
BRITISH AND FOREIGN ANTI-SLAVERY
SOCIETY.
By JAMES EWING RITCHIE.
LONDON:
AYLOTT AND JONES, 8, PATERNOSTERROW.
Price Eightpence.
p. 2Insome papers this Pamphlet was advertised as published atSixpence; it has been found, however,desirable to alter the price. To those who maydiscover coincidences of matter and manner between these pagesand those of the Philanthropist, the Author has only toadd, that having gone over much of the same ground in thatJournal, he thought himself justified in introducing suchfacts as might be available here.
London:Blackburn and Pardon, Printers, 6, Hatton Garden.
Gentlemen,
At the Annual Meeting of yourSociety, that has just been held, one of the most crowded youhave ever convened, the able and eloquent advocate of free trade,George Thompson, succeeded in carrying an amendment,notwithstanding the avowed opposition of your officers andCommittee; an amendment of the most essential importance,pledging you to the consideration of a subject that threatens toimpair the usefulness, and to imperil the very existence of theSociety you support. As a sincere well-wisher to thatSociety, as one eager with yourselves for the abolition ofslavery throughout the world, the writer of the following pagesbeseeches you to peruse them in the spirit of anxious solicitudewith which they were penned.
You must be aware, by the course you are pursuing, you arelosing the sympathies of the popular mind. If you heed notwhat you are about, the results of last p. 4Friday’s vote will materiallyimpair your strength. You are already quoted by men whohave no interests in common with the people; you are an authorityin the mouths of Conservative statesmen: the advocates ofmonopoly, and bloodshed, and death, for the former implies thelatter, tell us you sanction their proceedings, and smilecomplacently on their resort to measures that can only deriveefficacy from the fact, that they are backed by thesoldier’s sword. Religious and peaceable men, as youare, with full faith, believing what reason and revelation aliketeach, that truth—mere truth—simple and alone, isstronger than the iron arm of might, succumbs to no power, inheaven above, or on the earth beneath, how can you, how dare you,give the lie to the principles you profess, and ask the aid ofgovernment, which is based alone upon physical force? Thinkyou, by the bayonet and ball, to ennoble your noble cause? Know you so little of earth’s history, as for one moment tosuppose that wrong ever became right, or that by the employmentof means which error has used with success, you can obtain eventhe shadow of a gain for the sacred cause of truth?
Sir Robert Peel, the forlorn hope of rulers who have come intothe world a