and Anthony Benezet devoted their lives in the last century, continued by the organization of abolition societies and their meetings in convention here each year from 1794, was taken up by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831 in that bold declaration, equal in vigor to the words of Martin Luther at Worms: “I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch and I will be heard.” When that great struggle against slavery resulted in war, the men of Pennsylvania, who came to the rescue and first reached the Capital at Washington, were soon followed by the men of Massachusetts, and in the battle of Gettysburg, where that wonderful soldier, George G. Meade, broke the back of the Rebellion in the very acme of that crisis, when the fate of the nation was involved in the issue and the advance of Pickett's division hurled itself to destruction against the Philadelphia brigade, that ever glorious brigade, stood more firmly because they knew the fact that the Rhode Island battery of Brown, the United States battery of Cushing, and the brave sons of Massachusetts of the Nineteenth and Twentieth regiments supported them on every side.
This speech was applauded on the occasion of its delivery; it aroused attention and many distinguished men wrote to me in praise. A gentleman illustrated it with portraits and autographs, and after binding it in levant sent it to me. But I have never been invited to speak at a dinner of the New England Society since.
The judges, in social parlance, were regarded as being possessed of too slender resources to be expected to entertain, but it was the proper thing to invite them to all of the important functions, and my cards of invitation and menus, all of which are preserved and bound in volumes, give a quite complete picture of this phase of life in Philadelphia, and even of the state, for twenty-five years. The best dinners of a public nature were served at the Bellevue, which stood at the northwest corner of Broad and Walnut streets, and has since been torn down and been succeeded by the Bellevue-Stratford. There I have heard all of the leading statesmen, politicians, generals, admirals, literary men and other conspicuous persons of my time make after-dinner
