The spirit was surely willing but the purse was empty, "as thee know," he quaintly adds, "our farming business does not put much cash in our pockets." The cash he needed was generously supplied by Samuel E.Sewall, and Whittier went as a delegate to the convention after all.

The disposition on the part of some of the poorer delegates was so strong to be present at the convention that not even the lack of money was sufficient to deter them from setting out on the expedition.

Two of them, David T.Kimball and Daniel E.Jewett, from Andover, Mass., did actually supplement the deficiencies of their pocket-books by walking to New Haven, the aforesaid pocket-books being equal to the rest of the journey from that point.
About sixty delegates found their way to Philadelphia and organized on the morning of December 4th, in Adelphi Hall, the now famous convention.
It was a notable gathering of apostolic spirits--"mainly composed of comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond that period." They had come together from ten of the twelve free States, which fact goes to show the rapid, the almost epidemic-like spread of Garrisonian Abolitionism through the North.

The _Liberator_ was then scarcely three years old, and its editor had not until the second day of the convention attained the great age of twenty-eight! The convention of 1787 did not comprise more genuine patriotism and wisdom than did this memorable assembly of American Abolitionists.

It was from beginning to end an example of love to God and love to men, of fearless scorn of injustice and fearless devotion to liberty.