forming the committee the whole credit of this organization was due, and he believed one of their number, the Rev. Mr. Ballantyne, would present the offering that evening, and tell them all about it.  He would not, therefore, forestall what he would have to say on the subject.  They were also to have the pleasure of presenting Mrs. Stowe with an address from the committee in this city, which would be presented by another reverend friend, who would be introduced at the proper time.  As there would be a number of speakers to follow during the evening, his own remarks must be exceedingly short; but he could not resist the temptation of saying how happy he felt at being once more in the midst of a great meeting in the city of Edinburgh, for the purpose of expressing their detestation of the system of slavery.  They could appeal to their brethren in the United States with clean hands, because they had got rid of the abomination themselves; they could therefore say to them, through their friends who were now present, on their return home, and through the press, which would carry their sentiments even to the slave states—­they could say to them that they had washed their own hands of the evil at the largest pecuniary sacrifice that was ever made by any nation for the promotion of any good cause. [Loud applause.] Some parties said that they should not speak harshly of the Americans, because they were full of prejudice with regard to the system which they had seen growing up around them.  He said so too with all his heart; he joined in the sentiment that they should not speak harshly, but they might fairly express their opinion of the system with which their American friends were surrounded, and in which he thought all who supported it were guilty participators. [Hear, hear!] They could denounce the wickedness, they could tell them that they thought it was their duty to put an end to it speedily.  The cause of the abolition of slavery in our own colonies long hung without any visible progress, notwithstanding the efforts of many distinguished men, who did all they could to mitigate some of its more prominent evils; and yet, so long as they never struck at the root, the progress which they made was almost insensible.  They knew how many men had spent their energies, and some of them their lives, in attempting to forward the cause; but how little effect was produced for the first half of the present century!  The city of Edinburgh had always, he was glad to say, taken a deep interest in the cause; it was one of the very first to take up the ground of total and entire abolition. [Cheers.] A predecessor of his own in the civic chair was so kind as to preside at a meeting held in Edinburgh twenty-three years ago, in which a very decided step was proposed to be taken in advance, and a resolution was moved by the then Dean of Faculty, to the effect that on the following first of January, 1831, all the children born of slave parents in our colonies were from that date to be declared free.  That was