Churches of England and Scotland. The Rev. George Blyth, a Scotch missionary, who was now in Edinburgh, had published a letter in the Liverpool Mercury, in which he stated that he found no obstruction in teaching the negroes, and that the proprietor of a mill had caused it to stop for half an hour, while he addressed the slaves. He (Mr. Borthwick) put the question to any man who had been in the West Indies, whether, if he asked a slave, do you want your freedom, he would not receive an answer— No, Massa, me no want any more.' Free labor was cheaper than slave labor, and it was therefore the interest of the master to promote emancipation; but as there was no poor laws, it was inconsistent with the views he (Mr. T.) had given of humanity and religion to grant immediate emancipation. From the state of starvation, described by Mr. Thompson, they would fall into complete destitution, and from a state of comparative ignorance they would relapse into total barbarism. In St. Domingo, when it was a slave colony, the export of sugar had been very considerable, but since free labor was introduced they were actually obliged to import sugar for their own consumption. The free slave of St. Domingo was decidedly inferior in mental attainments to the negro in a state of slavery. This proved, he trusted, that instead of conferring a moral or religious boon on the slave by giving him emancipation, they were conferring a moral infliction that drove him back to the state of barbarism in which he existed in his native land. After some further observations, Mr. Borthwick said, that now the question was fairly before them, they would perceive it was not a question between immediate emancipation and perpetual bondage, as the planters wished for the emancipation of the slave as soon as it could be granted with safety. He had not time to enter on the question of emancipation. But he might ask who would compensate the negro? Would the Anti-Slavery Society do so? When he said that the planters were the best friends of the slave, he referred in proof of the fact to the abolition of the slave trade, to the slave acts of Jamaica and other islands, and to the contributions of money for the instruction of the slave. The chief anti-slavery advocates who had been possessed of slaves did not emancipate them, but sold them, and pocketed the hard

cash. (Loud applause.) Tell me not, continued Mr. Borthwick, of the Jamaica cart-whips. They are nothing at all! Mr. Thompson had said that one of them laid open the flank of a mule. He would give Mr. Thompson a challenge. He would give him liberty to lay open the calf of his (Mr. Borthwick's) leg with a Jamaica cartwhip, on condition that if he failed he should pay out of the funds of the Anti-Slavery Society, to the public charities of the town, the sum of £200. (Tremendous cheering and laughter.) Mr. Borthwick concluded by thanking the meeting for the attention with which they had heard him, and by soliciting the same attention for his opponent on the following evening.

Mr. Borthwick's address lasted three hours and twentyfive minutes,

MR. THOMPSON'S REPLY.

MR. THOMPSON made his reply to Mr. Borthwick on Thursday night, at the Amphitheatre, to a most numerous and respectable audience.

SAMUEL HOPE, Esq. was called to the chair.

MR. THOMPSON commenced by observing that never had a speech been delivered so completely vulnernable in all its parts a speech more disgraceful to the heart as well as to the head of the man who spoke it, than that delivered by Mr. Borthwick, the agent of the West India body, on the preceding evening. He meant nothing personal to Mr. Borthwick in this observation; he merely alluded to the speech, and that was his property-Mr. Borthwick had given it to him, and he had a right to tear it limb from limb. (Applause and hisses.) Mr. Borthwick complained heavily of being charged with having uttered what he knew to be a falsehood, and the meeting should see how the charge was made out. Mr. Borthwick asserted, in Manchester, that the happiest of the happy, amongst the free negroes in Sierra, Leone, was more miserable than the most miserable slave that breathed in the West Indies; and was not such an assertion as that a most gross and evident falsehod on the very face of it? (Yes, yes,'No, no!'-Cheers and disapprobation.) He would again and again aver that the statement was a falsehood-since it was contrary to history, contrary to observation, contrary to human nature, reason, and common sense. [Applause.] In speaking of the frightful decrease in the slave population, he had referred to Parliamentary documents to prove the truth of what he advanced, and then Mr. Borthwick turned round upon him and questioned the truth of those documents, though Mr. Borthwick well knew that they were founded on returns furnished by his friends, the planters, on oath. What was that but charging the planters with perjury? ['No, no,'-'Yes, yes.'] Those documents proved a decrease amongst the slaves of 52,000 in

ten years and a half; but Mr. Borthwick asked if manumissions were not constantly going on, which might account, in some degree, for that decrease. [Hear, hear.] But did not Mr. Borthwick know that the manumissions were duly noted in the returns of the planters, that deductions were made on that account, and that after such deductions had been made, the nett decrease was 52,000 in ten years and a half? [Cheers and disapprobation.] At Manchester Mr. Borthwick had told him that he came to the meeting merely by accident, anxious to be convinced, though at that very moment, he [Mr. T.] had a letter in his pocket warning him of Mr. Borthwick's approach; and though Mr. Borthwick afterward told him that he was paid to follow him from place to place, like his evil genius, Mr. Borthwick's very words. [Cheers, hisses, and cries of 'Question!'] That was the question ;-it tended to show the spirit of candor and fairness exhibited by Mr. Borthwick. He also begged to make another remark;-last evening he [Mr. Thompson] had called out 'No,' because when a statement was made against an alleged matter of fact, affecting the character and veracity of an individual, before 3,000 persons, many of whom might not have an opportunity of hearing the contradiction, it behoved that individual at once to contradict it. He had not declined the challenge of Mr. Borthwick; he was rather anxious to accept it but he had a more important work on hand than following the motions of Mr. Borthwick.

The letter I alluded to I produced at that meeting, and read an extract containing the announcement of Mr. Borthwick's approach, and the object of his mission; and I believe that Mr. Borthwick himself, so far from contradicting me, will bear me out in the declaration that I do not allude to a letter which has no existence. It was under these circumstances that I spoke, and, if I was warm on the subject, was it not sufficient to warm me to be told, when in the prosecution of a good work, that I should be followed about from place to place as by an "evil genius?" -a prophecy which has been in part fulfilled, after having been informed by Mr. Borthwick that he came by accident, merely to be convinced. Was it strange that I should be warm after hearing such contradictory assertions, and being the subject of such a threat?

Before passing from these rather irrelevant observations, allow me to make one further remark on the proceedings of last night, with reference to my own conduct on that occasion. I called out " No," because there was a statement regarding a matter of fact, personally affecting my own character and veracity, made before 3,000 persons, many hundreds of whom, perhaps, would not have an opportunity the following evening of hearing a true statement of the case, on whose minds, therefore, an impression to my prejudice would have been produced, if the assertion had been passed by without contradiction. It was said by Mr. Borthwick, that he gave me a challenge in Manchester, and that I declined it: I never did decline that challenge; I was rather anxious to accept it; but knowing the object Mr. Borthwick had in view, viz. to circumvent my design--to prevent my fulfilling my pledge to go here and there, rousing the public attention to this question, [and I have gone here and there, at the sacrifice of health, and almost life,] was I to remain at Manchester, and at a particular time accept the challenge of Mr. Borthwick, leaving the object of my mission in part unaccomplished? I am at any time ready to defend the positions I occupy, and I will defend them until they are successfully destroyed; but I am not bound to accept a particular challenge from Mr. Borthwick. I may say with Nehemiah, "The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place, therefore, ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us; our God shall fight for us." I cannot be delayed by matters of minor importance, when I have proved to ninety-nine out of every hundred of my hearers, that colonial slavery is a crime in the sight of God: and, therefore, that the negro ought to go free, and the bonds to fall from the limbs of the oppressed.' [Applause and disapprobation.]

He now came to Mr. B's reply; that gentleman had gone over his list of evils, and said there was nothing in them; but he defied Mr. Borthwick, with the West Indian body at his back, to drive him from one of those positions. Mr. Thompson then recapitulated the evils which he had attributed to the system of colonial slavery the preceding evening, and contended that not one of them had been touched by his opponent. He had said that general licen