" I then asked permission to
present it.
To this I received no reply. We were afterwards introduced to the
President, by a member of Congress, who evinced an anxiety that I should
make no reference to the memorial; and the President, on his part, made
no allusion to it, or to my letter to himself. After this interview, we
proceeded to the Senate, but it had risen just as we entered. I had a
short conversation with Henry Clay, who alluded to Joseph John Gurney's
work on the West Indies, which I need scarcely add, is written in a
series of letters to this statesman. He said that the recent short crop
of sugar in Jamaica was a proof that the author had been misled in the
favorable information he had collected, and also that this deficiency in
the crop was a proof not only of the idleness, but of the immorality of
the negroes. He accused my companion, John G. Whittier, of deserting
him, after having been his warm friend; and on J.W.'s giving his reasons
for so doing, he complained that the abolitionists improperly interfered
with the affairs of the South, though he made an exception in favor of
the Society of Friends.
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