Cbr ffIctrapoiOi. The large room in Exeter Hall was crowded

on Wednesday, by* multitude of both sexes, who assembled to petition Parliament for the abolition of Negro apprenticeship. The doors were opened at half- past nine, and by ten the immense room with its galleries was com- pletely filled ; the number present being estimated lit about five thou- sand. For several hours the avenues to the room were thronged by persons endeavouring in vain to force an entrance ; and multitudes went away disappointed, though another meeting on the same subject

was promised.

Lord Brougham, accompanied by Lady Brougham and his dauglile!, entered the *11 about twelve o'clock ; and was voted into the chair with rapturoids plaudits. On the platform, were Mr, O'Connell, Mr. Scholefield, Sir Charles Style, Mr. Baines, Mr. Gillon, Mr. Andrew White, the clergymen composing the Dissenters' Deputation now in town on the Scottish Church question, tk„: Reverend Mr. Carlisle of -Belfast, " William " Allen, and other geutlemen of influence, active in the abolition of slavery. On taking the chair, Lord Brougham addressed the meeting in a speech of great energy and eloquence, which strongly moved his excitable audience. He maintained that every Black in theWest.Indies might have been sufely emancipated in 1834- 'I Nobody can say now that the Negro slave might not safely foe himself, and for every one else, have been emancipatel on the 1st of August 1834. No man Can Fay that, much more on the 1st of August 1833, be might not be emanci- pate'. He has had four years of that transition state ; and It was unnecessary for him to have had four daya of it. Antigua and Bermuda proved that to a demonstration ; and what is the :answer 1 received ? Don't you know, that in Jamaica there are Maroons and high mountains to which the alters can run away, while in Antigua and Bermuda they have not those tneans of escape, and we cannot be sure that they will not run away when we emancipate them.' Run away from what? From liberty ? ( Vehement cheering.) .) Do they sup- pose that the Negro s as silly as themselves? Bent down by the yoke of slavery, made dull by oppression, crippled in his mind as in his body, in his feeling as in his senses, by that chain which he has dragged with a patience un. ezampled in the history of human beings, his intellect is nevertheless a thou- land timea clearer than those who have argued in the manner that has been described. Their argument, and the only one I have ever heard, is that al- though in Antigua, where there is no room, they may not be able to escape, and, therefore, it is safe to emancipate them ; yet in Jamaica, where there is a means of escape, they are likely to run away. When? why ? and for what? The moment they are made free, they are sure to run away from liberty—those who had never run away from slavery."

He had met with opposition in his attempt to free the Negro, from a well-meaning but imbecile Ministry-

,' I really must say, and I complain of it, that in all efforts I have made both in doors and out of doors, I have had to meet and confront in conflict all the influence a Liberal Government could bring against me. (Cheers, and cries of .1 Shame ") I complain of it ; I lament it ; and I have bitterly felt its con. sequences. But for that, we should have carried our point ; but for that, the slave's fetters would have dropped off, almost of themselves, on the hat August 1808. But of one thing I have no reason— (and it is but candid and few to our antagonists to state it)—of one thing I have no title to compleiu: I have no right to complain of the strength of the arguments brought by them against roe—(Laughice and cheering)—of the influence of knowledge, which is said to be Power; and if so, I have met wholly impotent antagonists. With the force of reasoning, or even the force of fancy, I have had nothing to contend. A set of weaker, more respectable, more impotent, more well.meaning, inure laughably ludicrous, more ridiculous and feeble antagonists, I have never yet had the lot to conflict with on any subject, in any place, in Parliament or out of doors." ( Great cheering.)

How stood the account with the planters?_

n We gave them twenty millions sterling, expecting that they would lose by die change—that it would injure their revenues and lower the value of their estate!. Has it done so?—it has increased the value of their estates. Although I have asked that question, I ;rave got no answer to it, for it is unanswerable. Though during the next two years, which is all we pray for, viz. instead of from 1st of August 1840, to have them emancipated on the lot August 181:4,— though during those two years there should be a hiss to the planters, unless that loss exceeded twenty millions sterling we have a right to it, for they have got their twenty milliooe. Nobedy answers that question, and airibody attempts to do it : why, then, should we give them the apprenticeship system for six yens at the time we paid them tweet). ? Not that they hail any right to it. I have seen it stated, in a document which ;wpm te to give a convulse- tiun between a slave-owner and an abolitionist, which has been distributed at the doer, that the Colonial Secretary is here at fault. I shall say nothing about the Colonial :::ecretary per-..-ally he is a most amiable and respectable man, but lie is a tied in the hands of a certain perty, and with that party we conflict. With Liin all his colleagues take a part; and nothing could be more rankly unjust than to bestow all the Idanne upon hint ; there is plenty to spare fur 4—(Mrich larighter)—and it ought to be divided between him and all his colleagues in rateable and just prnportions." (Cheers.) The principal speakers who followed Lord Brougham, moving and seconding the resolutions, were Air. William Allen, Sir Charles Style, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Andrew White, Captain Harwood, Mr. Burnett, and Mr. Carlisle. We make room for some extracts from Mr. O'Con- nell's speech. He said that the nation had been swindled by the planters-- " Yes; swindling is the name of it. You are all swindled ; every one of you, man, woman, and child. If you haul gone into a shop in Cheapside, or anywhere else, and paid the worthy citizen in that eliop a snot of money, and then hail said give me the lutestring, or the silk, and he had answered, I have pocketed the money, you may go away-a-away, indeed, you would hove gone, but it would have been to a police-office; and speedily the citizen would have bad to have iefunded or produced the goods. But here, because the name of the party is ' Legion,' Legion is to have your money, and you are to have no equivalent. But that system cannot now be much longer continued. I only wish we had been a little more slow in our payments. While we had our cash in our pocket, we ought to have been secure of the value. No, it was paid prematurely, paid unwisely ; and it requires now both energy and aa isdolu to insist that the debt due to humanity shall be paid."

But the system could not last-

" The congregated thousands whom I see here before me—the thousands whom I have seen going away—thousandslmore thau there are here—join me, not is swearing, but in saying that it shall not last ; they say that we must have that for which we have paid our money. And it must be given. (Repeated cheers.) When the Anti-slavery Delegates meet here in a few days, they will go round to the Members of the House of Commons, and they will say, 'Sir, we do not rare what you are—) on may be a beautiful Whig, or an excellent Tory, or a Radical, or any thing else ; but you must vote.' (Cheers and laughter.) 'And if not '—it is not necessary to say the rest of the supposition. (Lauyhter.) We shall then see what will follew. We shall see with what alacrity they will say to you, gentlemen of the Anti-Slavery Society= Oh! I was always an Emaacipator; I heartily concur with you. For my part, I always blamed the want of consideration with which the money was given ; and I will be in my Oace to vote for you whenever the question conies forward. I will take re- ltesbuients before I go. (Great laughter and cheers.) I will not pair off, sod I will not leave the Howe until I vote. But then, you will say, we have not the same control over another House. (Cheers, and a cry of " The Bishops, the Bishops !") Oh, God help you! clinic mind them. But, be- lieve we, the Lords are necessitate to reason, like other men. They don't like to be told in the streets, That is the man who prevente I the emancipation of the Negroes '—I say the man, but I mean the lord. (Laughter.) No, they can- nut: the Lords cannot be against us, lithe Indies are for us.'

The lion's roar would be beard in both Houses of Parliament. Ministers must obey it. To have Lord Brougham for a leader was no t vantage.... " We imine heud it • a giact refreshed with wine; ' here i. .

quence refreshed with philosophy-. rLoad and tudy cunt I!.• vigorated by his temporary retirement, he collies forth with superior briiii

to illuminate the moral atmosphere of humanity. We must soon Ole emu the victory. We have plain justice on our side. The tcrigne does net dare to utter, and the mind is almost polluted by the thought of, the fr:g,lofal scenes

of immorality which slavery necessarily produces and continues. ly Lord, we should not be men, we should not be Christians, if we did not rally under your standard. Rally, then, for the last blow. 'mist upon the initei.itiAte emancipation of the Negroes. Oh ! those who have laboured through the toilsome night on the way to liberty, and beset with difficulties, and surrounded by spectres of fright and horrors, know how many and vatious were those spectres of disorders, murders, and conflagrations, which were protruded upon us by the disordered interesteulness of the holders of slaves. Where are these spectres now ? Liberty has been proclaimed, and not a crime has been corn- nutted; freedom has been announced, and even the Negroes have felt the addi- tional injustice of England having paid for their freedom without their having obtained it. Dill ever a population show such exemplary forbearance, such a total absence of all crime, such an indulgence in the social virtue., and such a ready submission to legal injustice, as the maligned and prosecuted Negroes of the West Indies? Has not their conduct secured for them a brotherhood among all the friends of humanity, which wilt carry on the at indard further still than we have planted it, until they do not leave a single slave on the face of the earth. You have worked through the night, and the dawn is now coming on; but retire not—wait until the full sun of liberty is abroad. Faint not on the way, but proceed on your course, encouraged by every motive which can ennoble the human intellect and dignify the human heart." (Great ap- pki uThe Reverend Mr. Burnett denounced Lord Glerielg's bill for amending the Emancipation Act, as an inefficient half-and-half mea- sure— " The bill was brought forward to lead the friends of the Negroes to suppose that the Colonial Sectetarv would do something. The noble lord had admitted that the Negro was clicate'd of his hours, of his food, of the alinieist:ation of justice—that he was cheated of the protection of the Special Magiettetee, and of every thing on which the Apprenticeship Bill promised hint an advantage. He pitied the Governor in his heart. Lord Glenelg took him, and thiaw him amidst those men who could not he trusted : he threw bins into the den of liens, and told him to grapple with the monsters the best way he could. Ile was going out to govern men in peace anal good-humour, to whom hc must say, in the first place, ' You are destitute of honour, of bath, of justice, of humanity.' Who would expect that such a system would work well? And he spoke thus, not tabling the odium of the meeting on the West Indians, but to convioce the meeting that the bid never could work well. What they wet e to do, r licit, was to demand the thing, the whole thing, and nothing but the thing—which they had always demanded, and of which they could not give up one inch—entire and full liberty—liberty in all its hearings, and in its clearest and fullest sense— liberty as every Euglieliman understood it, and as 'Mr. Stanley described it in Ilia place in the House of Commone when he brought in hie bill, arid which ter- initiated in bondage, A Negro was at one time asked if he knew an it liberty

!Int ?—for his In:retie said, that after all that was said abut liherty, the

Negroes did not know what it meant. But the Negro answered, m. libeity means me go where me like.' Let the meeting, thertebte, teli Lord Glenelg they equally understood what his WI meant. Slavery v. is hal ::i its original, in its oh', and in its may degralation; bat it W.LI se s alemi iL rued in an old patched garment. Why did thy not take r

throat at once, and slay him and bury him, ineneel of Ii mig ri op

rags that made him more odiens? h il voluntt r,.v Wat ti with a ineeeure for which the West lail.ao 11111Itt14 tilt:1;7 ..1lit petitioned. Why should these ' well-nwatrinl ' tha, a Ilica,111V? " flu crs .) Lord 13roughion, before the meeting broke up, promised his attend- ance in the same place the next day, " if his life were spared." lie also took tbe opportunity of lauding Lords Ellenborotieli end Lynd- hurst for their support of his [notion for repealing the Order in Council, which sanctioned the Eastern slave-trade. Lord Lyndhurst, h., said, had, by his speech on that occasion, " raised his character hi the affec- tions of his countrymen in a much greater degree than he ever dispa- raged it by the course be had pursued in regatd to some other mea, tires."

On Thursday, another immense assembly was collected in the same place, to hold the adjourned meeting; lord Brougham again in the chair. The Reverend Dr. Cox, and the Reverend David Kitig of Glasgow, spoke fervently to the religious feelings of the meeting in behalf of the Negroes. Mr. Sturge stated, that if Sir Eardley Wilmot was too un- well to bring forward a motion for the entire abolition of slavery on the ;27th instant, Sir George Strickland would undertake the duty, and would give a notice for the .29th. Mr. Sturge addressed Lord Brougham as "the chairman," and a person corrected hint —" amble chairman " was the proper designation. IVIIereupon Lord Brougham said- " No, I wish you could say the contrary. I hail rather be in the House of Commons." ( Utters and laughter.)

Mr. George Thompson spoke with strong disapprobation of the conduct of Lord Glenelg ; who could not gaitisay the powerfu argu- ments, moral, religious, and political, in favour of itnmediate emanci- pation, but would not net in conformity with his opinions.

Why do you not, any Lord Glenelg, set the Negro at liberty. ? Ilis Lord. hip pauses, retires from the table, goes tuck to his seat, advaue,s, fob!. his trots. (1.,,sughttr.) At last he says, the interest of the planters nati-t consulted. Ile challenged the multitude before hint to produce any other ergo- uncut for the enure that had been adopted on the present question in the ilatiee of Lords on behalf of the postponement of that great measure of jihtii i: and mercy. The interest of the planters, sail my Lord Gletielg, many of whom aderned the House of Lords. Mr. .Thompson thought they did not :liken it upon this subject. ((Jontinued chreriny.) He liked not to su'e men with reverend on their brow, and lawn on their sleeves, stand forward as the as.,crtors of the right of property in their fellow men."

It was proposed that e deputation, beaded by Lord Broto4l am, should present the address of the nweting to the Queens Mr. Thump, sots knew there would be no ()Vernon on the part of the ineetieg to Lord Brougham. The entire assembly rose and gave three distin,et rounds of applause : Lord Brougham bowing repeatedly.

The last resolution was a vote of thanks to the Clittirmn, couched in highly complitnentary terms ; and carried with similar marks of enthusiasm. Lord Brougham then rose and delivered a long and power- ful address ; from which we make room for a few specimens. He had been charged (by the Chronicle of that morning) with being in his speech of the previous day "as usual, unjust to the Ministry "— He ceutululy W103, WI usual," one that would nut be taken 11.1—trut would not tahe pi-undies fur performances, yrofessieus for actions ; (nu, " as usual," 'who loved to see men prove their faith by their good works, and who would not be satisfied at seeing gentlemen called liberal if he saw at the same time that their conduct was illiberal. " As usual !"—why, to be sure ; aml he hoped he never would outlive that usage even for an hoer. la MI, he did not belong to the Government ; and yet he supported all their measures of that session, because he thought them founded on Liberal principles. The duty of carrying the Municipal Corporation Bill through the House of 'Ands in that session had been left to him, for if left entirely to those Ministers who had brought it forward, it would, he suspected, have met with a different fate. The next bession he left the House; and the Ministry then gave up his measures of reform in the Church, his Pluralities and Non-residence Bill, which had been only disapproved of in 1833 by two of the Ministry, which two were not in the Government of 1836; so that in that year, although they all approved of his bill, which would as effectually remove two of the greatest abuses in the Church, as the bill he should present after Easter would Negro apprenticeship, yet they substituted for that bill, when he was out of town from iii health' a Pluralities and Non-residence bill of their own, which was just as ineffectual as their pre- sent bill respecting Negro apprenticeship. Having recovered from his illness, and expressed hi. Intention of returning to town, lie was informed that the Go- vernmeut was in a situation an perilous, so near being overturned between a "'Wile Court, a hostile House of Lords, and a scanty majority in the House of Commons, that if on muffling his plum in Parliament, lie stated that he would give them his general support, but excepted hum that support those Church measures which they bud taken limn the Episcopalian Church Cum- miasion, and which were not his, he would inevitably put an end to the Government—(Ltmehter)—and therefore, iustead of being, " as usual," unjust to the Ministry, he purposely Astarte(' himself daring the re- moulder of that session, that be might not overturn them. Last year, he supported them in all their measurts except OM,- —Viz. their -abominable resolutions to coerce the people of Canada ; which he had warned them would haul to rebellion, awl that warning haul unfortunately been justified. Ile had in fact continued and consorted with them until November 1637—until that day when they had declared the Bethrin bill a perfect measme, and that

they did lit intend to alter It. Ile had since opposed them on the subject of slavery and the slave-trade ; but they greatly deceived themselves it they sup- posed that charges of injestice would ruffle his mind or affect his conduct in the least. Ile knew what a state tiny had got themselves into by their infa- tuated conduct, lie knew that they had choseu to break with the friends of Eulancipatien throughout the empire, and to give up the etee,tant and holier. tact Kopp' t of their bwly.guard and best friends—the Dissenters, tor the hiss of which he apprehended they would not fund an equivalent in that of the estaldished church. They were not to give up their principles, because it pleased a Ciovernment suddenly intoxicated with the favour of a Court to shut their eyes to them.

Though opposed by the Ministry, he had teceived support flout the Tories— Ile would be also jest to the Conservatives in the House of I.orda; than whom he never saw a vary. behave better or act more fairly than they hail done the other evening on his motion on the subject of the slav.stratle. Ile had received the anpport of Lord Ellenberough, In one of the abhst, lewestest, and best. I emsoned speeches he had ever heard delivered in Par': tun wt. He bad received the powerful awl manly siewort of Loud Lyiallourst ; of too eight reverend melees ; of Lord Wiaarlieliffs, who Ii d heel, a Cabinet Minis- ter with the Duke of Wellington :red tisi debert Peel ; ef three out of fool noble lords duet in the House, oho had hcen in the bottle duke's Cale :met, all of %Omni had voted in his minority ; while the Lilac iii Peers, with we. exeeptirw, bail voted against him. The Conservative Peers would not siegative his mo. thin ; they only moved the previous questioa, and he would therefore bring it forward again.

The Com.ervatives, though scanty in their profesjons, fullilled them.—

They might be in the wrong ; he believed them to be so; but tlisv were at least honest, and did not affect tulle better than they really were. ( Cheers and laughter.) He did not use the word in au improper sense; he Meant that they were politically homiest; and he confessed that he respected an honest Tory a great deal more than a shuffling Whig. Ile, however, was opposed to the Tory party, because they were for Church aud King; by which was meant, the Clergy rather than the Gospel, and the King rather than the Constitution. ((heers, accompanied by roars of laughter.) They did not make big professions, use high-sounding language about liberty and the rights of man, awl cry aloud for universal civil and religious liberty all over the world. They did not do so, for they were afraid that Reforan would advance too quickly, while he apprehended that it would go too slowly, stand stock still, or perhaps, what was worse, still go a little backwards. Such was not the creed of the Tory party: their creed was very different, but their opinions were neveitheless faithfully represented SID11 expressed in the House of Cumulous; and that much he could not say .for the Liberal Members of that Roust. They did not express the sentiments of „ the Liberal constituency of the counuy. At the risk of behm called unjust, he would say that they represented quite a differeet class. They buioted of a ma.

jority in the House of Commons, and vet they. supported Government in their

most illiberal measures. (Cheers.) ...1nd why did they do so ? He would answer the question by telling the meeting what feeling it was that they really did represent. They represented a very strong feeling, cloaked, however., under another phrase, meauing another thing—the tear of an event, of all others the most to he dreaded, namely, the fear of the Tories getting in. (('heers, and loud laughier.) That was exactly the state of the case,

He would advise time Liberal Members not to absent themselves on Sir Eardley IS'ilinot's or Sir George Strickland's motion—.

Let them not think that they could absent themselves with impunity on that day ; let diem not listen to the fiuesaea of Treasury and other Seen:tows, and under awl private secretaries to Cabinet Ministers, telling them of the risk of Tories coining in, and the peril of Whigs going out—of the hopelessness of ever again beiug visited by the cheerful gleams of &Alicial duty—power mid patron- age gone—office out of sight—the Court itself all but closed—no little jobs in Downing Street—no small favours to cousins in the country or to kinsmen in town—no honours in prospect or pensious in reversion—nothing but upposie than hereafter should they vote for the motion of Sir G. Strickland or Sir E. 'Wilmot. Let them not listen to such whisperings as these, for as sure as they did, &nil voted against time emancipation of the Negro, so surely would their constituents endeavour to put an end to their Parliameutary existence.

At the close of his speech, almost every sentence of which elicited cheers, Lord Broughant retired. The Reverend Mr. Bunting ex- pressed a hope

that the meeting would receive so ninth of the noble lord's speech as was political, merely as a subject of intellectual amusement. lie haul not the honour of coinciding in the political views oh' his Lordship ; but persons of all political (minim's, he was happy to say, joined in the object of that day's inert ; for truth and righteousness were anti party. ((Jheers.)

It is quite certain that the political parts of the speech were received with high glee and apparcht approbation by the ineeting. On IVembeesday , the Protestammt Association held a me

Exeter Hail; Mr. John Hardy in time chair. Captain Gordon addree. sed the meeting at considerable length, and moved, " Thut the endow. ment of the Church of Rome at home and abroad, by the present Government, is contrary to the Scriptures, a direct violation of the principles of the British Constitution as established at the Revolution of 1688, a id calculated to draw down upon the land the judgments denounced by God tigainst idolatry." The Reverend A. S. Thelwall briefly seccinded the motion ; after which the meeting separated.

Mr. Magnay and Mr. Tegg, the bookseller of Cheapside, are can didates for the office of Alderman in the Ward of Vintry, vacant by Mr. Winchester's death.

On Saturday, a numerous meeting of the ratepayers of the parish of Kensington was held in the Vestry-room, for the purpose of making a poor-rate. Mr. Gunter, the Chairman of the Board of Guardians moved that the rate be 9d. in the pound on the new valuation, %vim; gave a rental of 124,402/. The motion having been seconded, Mt, Saunders vontended that the appointment of the Committee by whom the new assessment had been made was illegal, the Act of Parliament not authorizing any such appointment. Mr. :Sounders concluded by moving, as an amendment, that "a rate of Ft/. in the pound be aseet. tained upon an estimate of' the net annual value of hereditaments rate. able to the relief of' the poor." Mr. Chancellor moved, as a second amendment, " That time Vestry proceed to ascertain a rate of Is. in the pound, upon the principle of the old rental of 103,96bl." A scene of great uprolir followed ; but the original motion was carried by a large majority. [ To " ascertain a rate," we suppose, is to learn the pre. bablc pm oduce thereof.]