The 1833 Emancipation Act was a considerable victory for the British anti-slavery movement. It became effective on 1 August 1834 and, to mark that day, the London Anti-Slavery Society suggested that thanks be given to God as, ‘Surely a day of such vast moment to the welfare of one part of the empire, and to the honour of the whole, ought not to pass unnoticed’. For many supporters, the question was what to do next. In the preceding years, links with American abolitionists had been increasing, and a number had travelled across the Atlantic to seek support within Europe, but especially of Britain and Ireland, where a considerable success had been achieved. On the eve of his visit to the United Kingdom in 1833, William Lloyd Garrison had praised British abolitionists for ‘fighting most manfully’, adding, ‘When I see what they are doing, and read what they write, I blush to think of my own past apathy and mourn in view of my poverty of thought and language.’ The support of British and Irish abolitionists was important to American abolitionists, but to what extent were they willing to interfere in slavery outside the British empire? Furthermore, following the passage of the 1833 Emancipation Act, George Stephen, the English abolitionist, believed that many of those who had helped to bring it about ‘were weary and exhausted with labour and anxiety’ and ‘needed both rest and leisure’. A number of the most active had ‘avowed that with Emancipation their co-operation ended’.