Julia G[riffiths] Crofts to Frederick Douglass, February 4, 1863

LETTERS FROM THE OLD WORLD. NO. 86.

LEEDS, February 4th, 1863.

MY DEAR FRIEND:

You say, truly, in the January number of your Monthly, "The feeling now becoming favorable to us in Great Britain, will become more so after the first of January."

So soon as the glad tidings, contained in President Lincoln's 1st of January proclamations reached our shores and spread rapidly through the length and breadth of our land, jubilant shouts arose; and are being echoed and re echoed in all directions. It is a source of unspeakable satisfaction to every to every true-hearted Englishman, not only to know that three millions of his brothers and sisters will by this righteous decree, assume the rights of manhood, of which they have been so long defrauded, but to feel that the President of the United States has kept his word." and is henceforth, fully entitled to the respect, the confidence, and the sympathy of all honest men.

God bless and prosper Abraham Lincoln! has been uttered by tens of thousands of white people on this side of the ocean. God bless Abraham Lincoln, will have been prayed by hundreds of thousands of colored people in the Southern States.

Anti-Slavery demonstrations are taking place in various directions. Last evening we had a large and enthusiastic public meeting held in Leeds, over which Mr. E. Baines presided and at which Dr. Crofts was one of the speakers. It was a capital meeting; great in influence great in the ability of the speeches and in the enthusiasm of the vast audience. It would have done your heart good to have heard the thundering shouts for liberty, and the groans for slavery; and to have looked down on the sea of upturned faces and the uplifted hands in favor of the admirable resolutions presented to, and unanimously (all but one) passed by the assembly. Mr. Baines's masterly speech is well transcribed in the columns of "the Leeds Mercury," (which journal I send you by this mail,) but without devoting the greater part of the "Mercury" to the meeting, it would be impossible to give more than a synopsis of these capital speeches——in which there was no half and half, they were thorough anti-slavery addresses. Several allusions were made to the strange statement of Lord John Russell, that the South were fighting for their independence. One speaker was particularly felicitous in his allusion to this mistaken notion concerning the people of the South, He said truly they were fighting for liberty, but it was for liberty to extend slavery, and for liberty to transport Africans across the seas.

"The London Times," and its recent outspoken defense of Slavery were reverted to by several speakers, (Dr. C. inclusive;) and strongly animadverted upon!

Sometimes I think, that even without the exercise of faith, we are enabled to see how evil is over-ruled for good—this has been the case with regard to that mighty journal—"the Times"—and their policy in reference to American affairs. Every one has felt for a long time past that their sympathy has been with the South. The readers felt this long before the writers of their leading articles openly expressed themselves on the subject and thus by degrees the "Times" has been leading thousands who pin their faith to its

columns into the belief that the NORTH is represented by hordes of undisciplined cowards, rabid against England, and equally so for Empire—and an accession of territory—and that the South is represented by a second edition of the brave Leonidas and his gallant bands, who—"fell devoted and undying"—in defence of their country—or by another Hoffer fighting for the liberties of his Fatherland!—and people have forgotten that the watchword of Southern liberty is SLAVERY. But (as one of the speakers well remarked last evening) "the Times has given us an over dose this time.'—and missed its mark. He remarked that a moderate dose of arsenic kills a person ; but if arsenic be given in a large quantity it fails in its deadly effect-so with "the Time"-when the leading journals of a free country dares not only to apologize for slavery nut to vindicate and support it with Scriptural authority, it is high time that the lion of England aroused himself from his slumbers, (in which he has perchance too long indulged) and lets the voice of his roaring go forth with a sound far mightier than that of the braying emenating from Printing House Square. A monster demonstration in favor of negro Emancipation, was held in London last Thursday (the 29th) Exter Hall was literally "crammed"—the smaller hall, also filled—and then a third meeting was held in the Street! On the same night your noble friend, W. E. Forster Esq., addressed his constituents in Bradford, and delivered a grand speech on Slavery to a vast and most enthusiastic audience. Another great demonstration has been made at Stroud.

I send you Mr. Brights able speech made of Rochdale at the meeting held there for the purpose of expressing thanks to the merchants and citizens of New York for their generous contribution towards the relief of our poor operatives in the cotton districts—Verily these poor famishing operatives deserved this considerate kindness at the hands of their American brethren.

"The Times" has never mislead them. They have borne their suffering without murmur and no voice has gone forth from them to our Government urging the recognition of the South as the surest way to shorten their season of trail.

There is something very touching in all this—the working classes are, for the most part right on the Slavery subject and they have given particular proof that they are so. Heaven bless our dear friend Gerrit Smith for his aid to Lancashire at a time when the calls upon him in behalf of this own countrymen must be so numerous. I have received from his own hand his great speech on "the Country" delivered in New York in December last. It is just like "the man of Petersboro ;" especially in the substitution of the question, "What shall we do for the blacks?" for the commonly asked one "what shall we do with the blacks?"

Dr. C. and I spoke and thought of you last night and wished so much that you could have seen and heard the meeting,-to say nothing of adding the weight of your testimony to the guilt, the piratical Southern Confederacy. It is an old and trite saying that "Rome was not built in a day."—

Some of our A.S. friends in this country, are enquiring what more there will be to do now that the majority of the slaves are declared free? Pray inform them in an early number of your monthly—and with warm congratulations to all true-hearted American friends of the slave, (both colored and white)and hearty good wishes that the work now began may be carried out successfully, believe me, as ever, your sincere and faithful friends,

J. G. CROFTS.