a few ladies met in this place to consider the best plan of obtaining signatures in Liverpool to an address to the women of America on the subject of negro slavery, in substance coinciding with the one so nobly proposed and carried forward by Lord Shaftesbury.  At this meeting it was suggested that it would be a sincere gratification to many if some testimonial could be presented to Mrs. Stowe which would indicate the sense, almost universally entertained, that she had been the instrument in the hands of God of arousing the slumbering sympathies of this country in behalf of the suffering slave.  It was felt desirable to render the expression of such a feeling as general as possible; and to effect this it was resolved that a subscription should be set on foot, consisting of contributions of one penny and upwards, with a view to raise a testimonial, to be presented to Mrs. Stowe by the ladies of Liverpool, as an expression of their grateful appreciation of her valuable services in the cause of the negro, and as a token of admiration for the genius and of high esteem for the philanthropy and Christian feeling which animate her great work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  It ought, perhaps, to be added, that some friends, not residents of Liverpool, have united in this tribute.  As many of the ladies connected with the effort to obtain signatures to the address may not be aware of the whole number appended, they may be interested in knowing that they amounted in all to twenty-one thousand nine hundred and fifty-three.  Of these, twenty thousand nine hundred and thirty-six were obtained by ladies in Liverpool, from their friends either in this neighborhood or at a distance; and one thousand and seventeen were sent to the committee in London from other parts, by those who preferred our form of address.  The total number of signatures from all parts of the kingdom to Lord Shaftesbury’s address was upwards of five hundred thousand.”

Professor Stowe then said, “On behalf of Mrs. Stowe I will read from her pen the response to your generous offering:  ’It is impossible for me to express the feelings of my heart at the kind and generous manner in which I have been received upon English shores.  Just when I had begun to realize that a whole wide ocean lay between me and all that is dearest to me, I found most unexpectedly a home and friends waiting to receive me here.  I have had not an hour in which to know the heart of a stranger.  I have been made to feel at home since the first moment of landing, and wherever I have looked I have seen only the faces of friends.  It is with deep feeling that I have found myself on ground that has been consecrated and made holy by the prayers and efforts of those who first commenced the struggle for that sacred cause which has proved so successful in England, and which I have a solemn assurance will yet be successful in my own country.  It is a touching thought that here so many have given all that they have, and are, in behalf of oppressed