but blessings, were lying in the helplessness of death, when that gentle
heart, so sorely tried and to the last so full of love, was lying cold in
the tomb,--a countryman in England could be found to cast the foulest
slanders on her grave, and not one in all England to raise an effective
voice in her defence.

I admit the feebleness of my plea, in point of execution. It was written
in a state of exhausted health, when no labour of the kind was safe for
me,--when my hand had not strength to hold the pen, and I was forced to
dictate to another.

I have been told that I have no reason to congratulate myself on it as a
literary effort. O my brothers and sisters! is there then nothing in the
world to think of but literary efforts? I ask any man with a heart in
his bosom, if he had been obliged to tell a story so cruel, because his
mother's grave gave no rest from slander,--I ask any woman who had been
forced to such a disclosure to free a dead sister's name from grossest
insults, whether she would have thought of making this work of bitterness
a literary success?

Are the cries of the oppressed, the gasps of the dying, the last prayers
of mothers,--are _any_ words wrung like drops of blood from the human
heart to be judged as literary efforts?

My fellow-countrymen of America, men of the press, I have done you one
act of justice,--of all your bitter articles, I have read not one. I
shall never be troubled in the future time by the remembrance of any
unkind word you have said of me, for at this moment I recollect not one.
I had such faith in you, such pride in my countrymen, as men with whom,
above all others, the cause of woman was safe and sacred, that I was at