THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

attendance at the annual meeting began a slow steady decline. Publication of The Non-
Slaveholder ceased, re-started, and then ended for good in 1854. 37
As American abstainers attempted to maintain associations to coordinate the work
of free produce, British reformers struggled to continue the British India Society. In
August 1840, Manchester replaced London as the center of the Indian reform movement.
Five months later the association established the British Indian Advocate, edited by
William Adam who had relocated to Britain from Massachusetts after the World Anti-
Slavery Convention. The Advocate was short-lived, however. In 1841, the British India
Society entered into a formal alliance with the Anti-Corn Law League. In an effort to
increase free trade, the ACCL sought repeal of British laws restricting the importation of
foreign grain. While many British and American abolitionists supported free trade and
the ACCL, including Tappanite Joshua Leavitt, many others worried that the movement
would distract attention from abolitionism particularly after George Thompson agreed to
set aside agitation for the BIS temporarily in order to work for the ACCL. As Elizabeth
Pease noted, “they [the ACCL] will not let us have GT to ourselves, peaceably.”
Thompson, Joseph Pease, and the leadership of the BIS agreed to the alliance. In return,
the leaders of the ACCL promised to throw the weight of their influence behind Indian
reform once the corn laws had been repealed. The leaders of the BIS thought they had
negotiated a good bargain; however, the alliance proved disastrous for the BIS. The
British India Society lost all public momentum for the cause and gained the enemies of
37 The Non-Slaveholder, April 1847, 84-89 and July 1847, 162-165; Liberator, April 9, 1847; E. C.
Wilkinson, “‘Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not’: The Abolitionist Debate Over the Free Produce
Movement,” Columbia Historical Review 2 (2002), 2-14.
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