In the course of the years 1825, 1826, and 1827, the benevolent people of England were pretty thoroughly roused by Clarkson, Wilberforce, Macaulay, and their brother philanthropists, to a consciousness of their nation’s wickedness, in consenting to the system of West India slavery under the dominion of the British Crown. The question of immediate emancipation was agitated everywhere throughout the realm. It was introduced into the debating-club which George Thompson had joined. His sympathy for the slaves had been awakened very early in life. His father, when a young man, ran away from home, and enlisted as captain’s clerk on board a slave-ship, not knowing what he did. But so soon as he witnessed the embarkation of the victims of that accursed traffic, and the treatment of them on the “middle passage,” he was too much horrified to remain an hour longer, than he was obliged to, in any way connected with “a business too bad for demons to do.” Immediately, therefore, on the arrival of his ship in the West Indies, he fled to an officer of a British man-of-war, and begged that he might be impressed into the naval service, and so escape the repetition of the horrors he had seen and unwillingly helped to perpetrate. Often had George heard his father narrate the cruelties which were inflicted on board the ship with which he was connected,--cruelties inseparable from the forcible transportation of human beings, without the least regard to their personal comfort, from the freedom of their native wilds to the hell of slavery in America. Thus was his young heart and soul fired with indignation at the sin of his nation, and baptized into the love of impartial liberty. He, of course, welcomed the introduction of the question into the club, and entered upon the debate with holy zeal. The discussion was continued through twelve evenings. It attracted much attention; resulted in a resolution, passed almost unanimously, in favor of _immediate emancipation_; and was deemed of sufficient importance to be reported to the government. Especial mention was made of “the heartfelt, impassioned eloquence of a young man, named George Thompson”; and our friend became the cherished associate of several gentlemen who have since been widely known among the active friends of all the reforms and social improvements that have blessed Great Britain and Ireland within the last forty years.