In 1840 a “World’s Antislavery Convention” was held in London, and all Antislavery organizations throughout the world were invited to join in it, through their delegates. Several American societies accepted the invitation, and elected delegates, six or eight of whom were women, Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Wendell Phillips among them. The excitement caused by their presence in London was intense, for the English Abolitionists were very conservative, and never dreamed of inviting women to sit in their Convention. And these women who had come among them had rent the American Antislavery Societies in twain, had been denounced from the pulpit, anathematized by the press, and mobbed by the riffraff of the streets. “They who have turned the world upside down have come hither also,” was the affrighted cry, nor was the alarm of the English Abolitionists lessened when they saw that those of the women delegates who were not Quakers, clad in the traditional garb of that sect, were young, cultivated, and refined. A long and acrimonious debate followed on the admission of the women, during which many of the men delegates from America showed the white feather and sided with the English opposition. Again the tyranny of sex was combated, and the doctrine of woman’s equality with man enunciated, and again the battle for woman’s rights was fought with moral force and logical correctness, as it had been in America the year before. Some of the noblest women of England were in attendance as listeners and spectators,—Elizabeth Fry and Lady Byron, Mrs. Anna Jameson and Mary Howitt,—and, judging by later events, the lesson was not lost upon them. When the vote was taken, the women delegates were excluded by a large majority. William Lloyd Garrison did not arrive in London until after the rejection of the women. When he was informed of the decision of the Convention he refused to take his seat with the delegates. And throughout the ten days’ sessions he maintained absolute silence, remaining in the gallery as a spectator. Only one other of the delegates joined him, Nathaniel P. Rogers of Concord, New Hampshire, an editor of an Antislavery paper.