WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 321 Sewall, and A. Bronson Alcott, who then gave in their adhesion to the cause. Dr. Lyman Beecher was also present but made no sign. On January i, 1831, appeared the first number of The Liberator, in Boston, bearing for its motto, " Our Country is the World Our Countrymen are Man' kind." Mr. Garrison, as editor, was assisted by Isaac Knapp, a fellow-printer from Newburyport, as publisher. The paper was issued at No. '6 Merchants' Hall, at the corner of Congress and Water Streets, in the third story, the part- ners making their home in the printing-office. It was this office that Harrison Gray Otis, the mayor, at the request of ex-Senator Hayne, ferreted out through his police, describing it as " an obscure hole," containing the editor and a negro boy, "his only visible auxiliary," while his supporters were " a very few insignifi- cant persons of all colors." Lowell has thus described it in a different spirit : "In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man ; The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean, Yet there the freedom of a race began." In the initial editorial appeared the famous declaration of Mr. Garrison, " I am in earnest -I will not equivocate I will not excuse I will not retreat a sin- gle inch and I will be heard." Although its circulation was meagre, the pub- lication of The Liberator made a tremendous sensation throughout the South, bringing upon its editor abusive and threatening language, and, at the North, un- popularity and persecution. The Legislature of Georgia offered a reward of $5,000 for his arrest and conviction. In 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was organized in Boston, and the campaign for " immediate and unconditional emancipation " begun. The Colonization Society, which Mr. Garrison formerly supported but later de- nounced, became the object of special attack as an ally of the slave power, and, to counteract its designs, he sailed for England, May 2, 1833, to expose its pro- slavery purposes to the English abolitionists. He was cordially received by Wilberforce, Buxton, Zachary Macaulay, Daniel O'Connell, and their associates in the struggle for West India emancipation, and before he left the kingdom he witnessed the passage of the Emancipation Act, and was present at the funeral of Wilberforce, in Westminster Abbey. Returning from his successful mission abroad he narrowly escaped the hands of a New York mob on landing upon his native soil. In December, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, in Phil- adelphia, and Mr. Garrison drew up its famous Declaration of Sentiments, which numbered among its signers many of the men and women destined to be distin- guished in the anti-slavery cause, among whom was the poet W T hittier. On September 4, 1834, Mr. Garrison was married to Miss Helen Eliza Ben- son, of Brooklyn, Conn. ; a fortunate and happy union. In 1835, the eminent English orator, George Thompson, came by invitation to the United States to assist in the emancipation of the American, as he had of 21
