Evidently our company was not one for
respectability to march through Coventry with.
On the following morning we repaired to the Adelphi Building, on Fifth
Street, below Walnut, which had been secured for our use. Sixty-two
delegates were found to be in attendance. Beriah Green, of the Oneida
(New York) Institute, was chosen president, a fresh-faced, sandy-haired,
rather common-looking man, but who had the reputation of an able and
eloquent speaker. He had already made himself known to us as a resolute
and self-sacrificing abolitionist. Lewis Tappan and myself took our
places at his side as secretaries, on the elevation at the west end of
the hall.
Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly composed of
comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond that
period. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to comfort
rather than elegance. Many of the faces turned towards me wore a look of
expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the earnestness which might
be expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset with difficulty and
perhaps with peril.
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