And yet the authorities in all these places attest the good behavior of the Africans. Sir Lionel Smith, Governor of Jamaica, in a speech to the Assembly, declares that their conduct “amply proves how well they have deserved the boon of Freedom”;[12] the Governor of the Leeward Islands dwells on “the peculiarly rare instances of the commission of grave or sanguinary crimes amongst the emancipated population of these islands”;[13] and the Queen of England, in a speech from the throne, has announced that the complete and final emancipation of the Africans had “taken place without any disturbance of public order and tranquillity.”[14] In this example I find new confirmation of the rule, that the highest safety is in doing right; and thus do I dismiss the objection founded on alleged danger to the master. * * * * * 2. I am now brought to the second objection, founded on alleged _damage to the slave_. It is common among partisans of Slavery to assert that our Enterprise has actually retarded the cause it seeks to promote; and this paradoxical accusation, which might naturally show itself among the rank weeds of the South, is cherished here on our Northern soil among those who look for any fig-leaf with which to cover indifference or tergiversation. This peculiar form of complaint is an old device, instinctively employed on other occasions, until it ceases to be even plausible. Thus, throughout all time, has every good cause been encountered. The Saviour was nailed to the cross with a crown of thorns on his head, as a disturber of that peace on earth which he came to declare. The Disciples, while preaching the Gospel of forgiveness and good-will, were stoned as preachers of sedition and discord. The Reformers, who sought to establish a higher piety and faith, were burnt at the stake as blasphemers and infidels. Patriots, in all ages, striving for their country’s good, have been doomed to the scaffold or to exile, even as their country’s enemies. Those brave Englishmen, who, at home, under the lead of Edmund Burke, espoused the cause of our fathers, shared the same illogical impeachment, which was touched to the quick by that orator statesman, when, after exposing its essential vice, in “attributing the ill effect of ill-judged conduct to the arguments which had been used to dissuade us from it,” he denounced it as “absurd, but very common in modern practice, and very wicked.”[15] Ay, Sir, it is common in modern practice. In England it has vainly renewed itself with special frequency against Bible Societies,--against the friends of education,--against the patrons of vaccination,--against the partisans of peace,--all of whom have been openly arraigned as provoking and increasing the very evils, whether of infidelity, ignorance, disease, or war, which they benignly seek to check. To bring an instance precisely applicable to our own,--Wilberforce, when conducting the Antislavery Enterprise of England, first against the