Angry growls reached his ears in the first month of the publication of the _Liberator_ from some heartless New England editors in denunciation of his "violent and intemperate attacks on slaveholders." The _Journal_, published at Louisville, Kentucky, and edited by George D.Prentice, declared that, "some of his opinions with regard to slavery in the United States are no better than lunacy." The _American Spectator_ published at the seat of the National Government, had hoped that the good sense of the "late talented and persecuted junior editor" of the _Genius_, "would erelong withdraw him even from the side of the Abolitionists." And from farther South the growl which the reformer heard was unmistakably ferocious.

It was from the State of South Carolina and the Camden _Journal_, which pronounced the _Liberator_ "a scandalous and incendiary budget of sedition." These were the beginning of the chorus of curses, which soon were to sing their serpent songs about his head.

Profane and abusive letters from irate slaveholders and their Northern sympathisers began to pour into the sanctum of the editor.

Within a few months after the first issue of the _Liberator_ the whole aspect of the world without had changed toward him.

"Foes are on my right hand, and on my left," he reported to some friends.