Harriet Martineau and Anne Knight, on Garrison and the London Convention

(Liberator, October 30, 1840, pg 2)  Here are extracts from letters from Martineau and Knight, read at a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society meeting,  commenting on Garrison’s action at the London Convention…. Martineau to Knight:  ” Garrison was quite right, I think to sit in the gallery at the Convention.  I conclude you think so.. It has done much, I am persuaded.  You will ive to see a great enlargement of our scope of usefulness, I trust … The information brought out at the Convention will do good, I have no doubt…”    Then, Anne Knight, comments on the role of women  … “we are not the same beings as fifty years ago; no longer ‘sit by the fire and spin’, or distill rosemary and lavendor for poor neighbors; but appoint vising committees for them, and sit in Mission and Bible Societies, reporting to the men; sitting in their public meetings and uniting them in association committees…..”