"My brother," writes one of the grandsons, "told me that the last time he saw Henry Clay, Mr. Clay took his hand in both of his and said, with great emphasis: 'It is to your grandfather that I owe my present position with regard to slavery. It was he who first pointed out to me the curse it entailed on the white man, and the manifold evils it brings with it.'" In determining how far the sentiments contained in this oration were the current opinions of the time, it became necessary for me to know something definite of the "Maryland Society for the Abolition of Slavery," of the Virginia, the Pennsylvania, and other societies, which existed at that time. This information I could not obtain from anti-slavery books, or from the most prominent abolitionists whom I consulted. The matter seemed to have been forgotten, and it was the common idea that there was nothing worth remembering of the anti-slavery movement before 1830, when Mr. Garrison and his radical friends came upon the stage in Boston. For the want of the facts I needed, I laid aside the idea of reproducing the tract. The subject was brought again to mind by hearing the excellent paper, by Mr. S. E. Wright, our secretary, on the anti-slavery labors of Benjamin Lundy, which he read to this Club, a few months ago. The labors of Mr. Lundy began in 1816, and ended with his death in 1839. Quite recently I have obtained much of the information I needed. Among the unknown facts to which I could get no clue at the time I have mentioned, were the names of the "Virginia Calculator" and the "Physician of New Orleans," whom Dr. Buchanan mentions with Phillis Wheatley, Ignatius Sancho, and Banneker, the Maryland astronomer, as being negroes who were distinguished for their literary and mathematical acquirements. Mr. Phillips had never heard of them, and he took the trouble to make inquiries among his anti-slavery friends, but without success. A year or more after I had abandoned my little project, in looking over the files of the Columbian Centinal, printed in Boston, for 1790, I found under the date of December 29th, in the column of deaths, the following: