Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

Two days later, a brief editorial appeared in the columns of the Boston Evening Transcript, announcing¹ Mr. Garrison's arrival in Boston, and describing the shabby treatment to which he had been subjected in Newburyport. The article²concluded with some complimentary words about the young reformer in a cause ‘which he could never hope to see perfected, but of which he would long be remembered as an early and laborious pioneer.’

Encouraged by this kindly reception, Mr. Garrison sent three short communications to the Transcript during the ensuing month. In one of these he called attention to the³ recent rendition of two fugitive slaves (man and wife) who had escaped by secreting themselves on a brig from New Orleans to Boston, but who, being discovered before the vessel reached port, were arrested and carried before a magistrate on its arrival, and sent back into slavery without producing the least ripple of excitement in the community. In another article he commented on the ⁴ inconsistency and hypocrisy of the whites of Charleston. Richmond and Baltimore, in noisily celebrating the overthrow of Charles the Tenth, of France, while holding their fellow-beings in a state of servitude which, for cruelty and debasement, found no parallel in European despotism. This stirred the wrath of the Charleston (S. C.) City Gazette, which declared it ‘impertinence’ in a man who had ‘lately been punished for similar impertinences,’ to meddle with the concerns of other people, and expressed the wish that he might be furnished with some ‘decent, honest employment,’ to keep him out of mischief. The Transcript copied this paragraph as ‘a⁵ fair offset’ to the article which had elicited it; whereupon Mr. Garrison replied in a letter of such vigor that the timid editor printed it with confessed reluctance, and a preliminary sermon to his correspondent on the rashness