For he was one of those electric speakers, who do with popular audiences what they will.

In figure and voice and action, he was a born orator.

His eloquence was graphic, picturesque, thrilling, and over English audiences it was irresistible.
Garrison fancied that such eloquence would prove equally attractive to and irresistible over American audiences as well.

But in this he was somewhat mistaken, for Thompson had to deal with an element in American audiences of which he had had no experience in England.

What that element was he had occasion to surmise directly he arrived upon these shores.