William Lloyd Garrison, an American abolitionist, born in Newburyport, Mass., Dec. 12, 1804. His parents were natives of the province of New Brunswick. His father, Abijah Garrison, was master of a vessel engaged in theWest India trade, and a man of some literary ability and taste; but he became intemperate, and abandoned his family while his children were young. The mother, left in utter poverty, became a professional nurse, and in 1814 went to Lynn. William was at first apprenticed to a shoemaker, but afterward sent to school at Newburyport, partly supporting himself by aiding a wood sawyer. In 1815 he went with his mother to Baltimore, where he remained a year in the capacity of an errand boy, and then returned to Newburyport. In 1818 he was indentured to Ephraim W. Allen, editor of the "Newburyport Herald," to learn the art of printing, and when only 16 or 17 years of age began to write upon political and other topics for the "Herald," carefully preserving his incognito, and once received through the post office a letter of thanks from his master, with a request that he would continue to write. He soon commenced writing also for other journals, and a series of articles which he wrote for the"Salem Gazette," under the signature of "Aristi-des," attracted much attention in political circles.

In 1826 he became the proprietor and editor of a journal in his native town, called the"Free Press," which proved unsuccessful. He then worked for a time as a journeyman in Boston. In 1827 he became the editor of the "National Philanthropist" in that city, the first journal ever established to advocate the cause of"total abstinence;" and in 1828 he joined a friend in the publication of the"Journal of the Times" at Bennington, Vt. This journal supported John Quincy Adams for the presidency, and was in part devoted to peace, temperance, anti-slavery, and other reforms; but it failed to receive an adequate support. During his residence in Bennington he produced considerable excitement upon the subject of slavery, not only in that place but throughout the state, in consequence of which there was transmitted to congress an anti-slavery memorial more numerously signed than any similar paper previously submitted to that body. Benjamin Lundy, an advocate of the gradual abolition of slavery, was then engaged in publishing the Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore. He had met Mr. Garrison during the previous year in Boston, and received from him timely assistance in bringing his cause to the notice of the people of that city.

Wishing for a coadjutor, he went to Bennington and engaged Mr. Garrison to join him in the editorship of his journal. On July 4, 1829, Mr. Garrison delivered in Park street church, Boston, an address which excited general attention by the boldness and vigor of its assault upon slavery. In the autumn he began his labors in Baltimore as joint editor with Mr. Lundy of the Genius of Universal Emancipation," and in the first number issued under his supervision he made a distinct avowal of the doctrine of immediate emancipation as the right of the slave and the duty of the master. Mr. Lundy did not concur with him in this doctrine, but as each of them appended his initials to his articles, the difference interposed no barrier to hearty cooperation. The journal, by its bold and uncompromising tone, produced considerable excitement among the supporters of slavery, while Mr. Garrison's denunciations of the colonization society aroused the hostility of some who, upon other grounds, were inclined to sympathize with him. An event soon occurred which resulted in a dissolution of his connection with the paper.

The ship Francis, owned by Francis Todd of Newburyport, having taken a cargo of slaves from Baltimore to Louisiana, Mr. Garrison denounced the act as a "domestic piracy," and declared his purpose to "cover with thick infamy" all those implicated therein. Baltimore being then the seat of an extensive domestic traffic in slaves, his denunciation produced a great deal of feeling, and he was in consequence indicted and convicted, in the city court. May term, 1830, for "a gross and malicious libel against the owner and master of the Francis, and sentenced to pay a fine of $50 and costs of court. Being unable to discharge the judgment, he was committed to jail. Mr. Todd, in a civil suit for damages, subsequently obtained a verdict against him for $1,000; but the judgment, probably on account of his well known poverty, was never enforced. His friend Lundy and a few other Quakers were the only persons who visited him in jail to express their sympathy. The press at the north generally condemned his imprisonment as unjust, and his letters to different newspapers excited a deep interest. The manumission society of North Carolina protested against his imprisonment as an infraction of the liberty of the press.

He remained in jail 49 days, when Arthur Tappan, a merchant of New York, paid the tine and costs, and he was set at liberty. It subsequently appeared that Mr. Tappan had in this act anticipated by a few days the generous purpose of Henry Clay, whose interposition had been invoked by a mutual friend. His next step was to issue a prospectus for an anti-slavery journal, to be published in Washington; and with a view to excite a deeper interest in his enterprise, he prepared a course of lectures on slavery, which he subsequently delivered in Philadelphia, New York, New Haven, Hartford, and Boston. In Baltimore his attempts to obtain a hearing were unsuccessful. Private efforts to procure a suitable place for the delivery of his lectures in Boston having been made in vain, he advertised in one of the daily journals that, if a meeting house or hall were not offered before a certain day, he would address the people on the common. An association of persons calling themselves infidels thereupon proffered him the gratuitous use of a hall under their control, and, no other offer being made, he delivered his lectures in the place thus opened; taking care, at the same time, to avow his faith in Christianity as the power which alone could break the bonds of the slaves.