THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, who, on coming forward to open the proceedings, was received with much applause, spoke as follows: "We are assembled here this night to protest, with the utmost intensity, and with all the force which language can command, against the greatest wrong that the wickedness of man ever perpetrated upon his fellow-man--[loud cheers]--a wrong which, great in all ages--great in heathen times--great in all countries--great even under heathen sentiments--is indescribably monstrous in Christian days, and exercised as it is, not unfrequently, over Christian people. [Hear!] It is surely remarkable, and exceedingly disgraceful to a century and a generation so boastful of its progress, and of the institution of so many Bible societies, with so many professions and preachments of Christianity--with so many declarations of the spiritual value of man before God--after so many declarations of this equality of every man in the sight of his fellow-man--that we should be assembled here this evening to protest against the conduct of a mighty and a Protestant people, who, in the spirit of the Romish Babylon, which they had renounced, resort to her most abominable practices--making merchandise of the temples of God, and trafficking in the bodies and souls of men. [Cheers.] We are not here to proclaim and maintain our own immaculate purity. We are not here to stand forward and say, 'I am holier than thou.' We have confessed, and that openly, and freely, and unreservedly, our share, our heavy share, in by-gone days, of vast wickedness; we have, we declare it again, and we had our deep remorse. We sympathize with the preponderating bulk of the American people; we acknowledge and we feel the difficulties which beset them; we rejoice and we believe in their good intentions; but we have no patience--I at least have none--with those professed leaders, be they political or be they clerical, who mislead the people--with those who, blasphemously resting slavery on the Holy Scriptures, desecrate their pulpits by the promulgation of doctrines better suited to the synagogue of Satan--[cheers]--nor with that gentleman who, the greatest officer of the greatest republic in the whole world, in pronouncing an inaugural address to the assembled multitudes, maintains the institution of slavery; and--will you believe it?--invokes the Almighty God to maintain those rights, and thus sanction the violation of his own laws!--[Cries of 'Shame!'] This is, indeed, a dismal prospect for those who tremble at human power; but we have this consolation: Is it not said that, 'When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him?' [Hear, hear!] He has done so now, and a most wonderful and almost inspired protector has arisen for the suffering of this much injured race. [Loud cheers.] Feeble as her sex, but irresistible as virtue and as truth, she will prove to her adversary,