The importance of the "Inquiry" to the antislavery cause is illustrated by the diverse character of the men whose attention was attracted by it--men whose conservative habits of mind, whose business and professional interests caused them to ignore if not to condemn the abolitionists. "Your book," wrote Rev. Beriah Green, who presided at the organization of the American Antislavery Society in Philadelphia, "will command a large circle of readers who could not be persuaded to examine a paragraph written by any of us who have so long been known and hated and execrated as abolitionists. To many of these, your arguments, so skilfully arranged, so powerfully described, so happily conducted to so triumphant a conclusion, must prove convincing. They must abandon their 'miry clay,' and, aided by your hand, take a position 'on the rock.'" Among leading men influenced by Jay's "Inquiry" may be mentioned Dr. Alonzo Potter, afterwards Bishop of Pennsylvania, and Peter G. Stuyvesant, a representative of the solid Knickerbockers of New York. Edward Delavan, of Albany, wrote: "You have done the cause of humanity an incalculable amount of good by the work." Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick wrote from Stockbridge: "We are reading your book on American slavery with great interest. You have rendered an invaluable service to the country and to the cause of humanity." The approbation most welcome to Jay was probably that of the eminent Chancellor Kent. "I have read the volume," he said, "with equal interest and astonishment. You have accumulated a mass of facts of which a great part were to me unknown, and they are of a surprising kind. I do not well see how your argument on any material point can be gainsaid. You have amply vindicated the character and intentions of the American Antislavery Society from all injurious imputations. The details of the slave-trade and its accompanying atrocities, as carried on at Washington, are horrible, and your work must go far towards opening the eyes and disabusing the minds of the public. I have, from the very beginning, had doubts and misgivings as to the efficacy and results of the American Colonization Society, and for some years past I have become satisfied that the scheme was in reality but an Utopian vision, though I had supposed until now that its fruits were better. Permit me to add that I have been much pleased, not only with the clearness, force, simplicity, and precision of the style, but with your fearless, frank, and manly, but courteous vindication of the cause of Truth and Justice, and with your striking appeals to the conscience and responsibilities of the Christian reader." CHAPTER IV. CONTINUED EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT BY FORCE AND INTIMIDATION.--FAVOURABLE EFFECT UPON THE PUBLIC MIND PRODUCED BY JAY'S WRITINGS.