“Our people are threatened with starvation. First our potatoes. And now the wheat crop has failed in England. There is no longer time. Richard Cobden writes that the Prime Minister may be with us. A shallow hope, but I must be on hand if needed.”
“Perhaps then I shall see you in London?” The thought that he might not see the old man again was unbearable.
“Perhaps, Frederick. God bless you!”
Frederick found the famous old city of Edinburgh literally plastered with banners. Send Back the Money stared at him from street corners. Every square and crescent carried the signs. They had scribbled it on the sidewalks and painted it in large white letters on the side of the rocky hill which stands like some Gibraltar, guarding the city: Send Back the Money.
For several days George Thompson, James Buffum and another American, Henry C. Wright, had been holding antislavery meetings in the city. As soon as Douglass arrived, they hurried him off to the most beautiful hall he had ever seen. The audience was already assembled and greeted him with cheers. Without taking time to remove the dust and grime of travel, he mounted the platform and told his story.
After that, excitement mounted in the town. Send Back the Money appeared in a banner across the top of Edinburgh’s leading newspapers. Somebody wrote a popular street song, with Send Back the Money in the chorus. Wherever Douglass went, crowds gathered. It was as if he had become the symbol of the people’s demand.
At last the general assembly of the Free Church rose to the bait and announced they would hold an open session at Cannon Mills. Doctors Cunningham and Candlish would defend the Free Church of Scotland’s relations with slavery in America. The great Dr. Chalmers was in feeble health at the time. “Besides,” Douglass wrote afterward,[6] “he had spoken his word on this question; and it had not silenced the clamor without nor stilled the anxious heavings within.” As it turned out, the whole weight of the business fell on Cunningham.
The quartet of Abolitionists made it their business to go to this meeting of the opposition. So did the rest of Edinburgh. The building held about twenty-five hundred persons. Long ahead of time, the crowd gathered outside and stood waiting for the doors to open.
Douglass always remembered the meeting at Cannon Mills with relish.