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    OBITUARY.

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    ( * 3 « )

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    * JWr . William Rathbont . \ [ The following account of Mr . Rathbone , commonly attributed to Mr . Roscoe , is taken from the Athtnaum for March , voL v . p . % 6 o . . We-copy it by desire of a much-respected Friend * who has added to it a few notes . Editor . }

    The commemoration of departed worth is a debt due no less to the living than to the dead , and it would be unjust to the present age to suffer the virtues and talents of one of its brightest ornaments , recently withdrawn from it , to pass away without particular notice . WILLIAM RATHBONE , who died

    on the nth day of February , at his house at Green Bank , near Liverpool , ¦ was the son o £ William Rathbone , a respectable merchant , of Liverpool , and one of the religious society of Quakers , from whom he inherited that uprights ness of heart and benevolence of

    character by which he was himself so eminently distinguished . Although engaged at an early period in active business , which he pursued with strict regularity , and for many years- of his life with unremitting industry , he yet found leisure for the cultivation of his mind in many of the ' most important branches of human

    knowledge . Endowed by nature with kind dispositions and an excellent understanding , his great view throughout life was . to promote , as far as his situation would permit , the true honour , interests and happiness of his fellow-creatures ; an object which he endeavoured

    to accomplish not merely by uncsasiag workb of charity and benevolence within the sphere of his personal influence , but by a steady , uniform and unshaken attention to all those great principles of right and justice upon which are founded the security , respectability and prosperity of the human

    race-Throughout the political , moral and religious storms and couamotiqns which have now for so long a period agitated the civilized world , he was a rock that felt no change . Whenever the ri g hts and welfare of others were in question , whenever oppression was to be withstood , or intolerance opposed , it was unnecessary to ask for , his assistance , or to enquire what was his opinion . His kand &nd his heart , every faculty of his

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    body , and every energy of his mind were ready in the cause . In the year 1792 , when the fate of Europe depended upoit the turn of the balance , when a wise , temperate and enlightened decision , might have preserved the world from unspeakable calamities , and given to this nation the honour of having patronized the cause of rational freedom and of

    limited monarchy , he was among the first who in his native t « wn of Liverpool endeavoured to impress upon the public mind the expediency of avoiding a war with France . At a general meeting of the inhabitants , called by the Mayor in the month of December in

    that year , his exertions , with those of other friends of liberty and peace , induced the meeting to vote an address to his Majesty , expressive of their gratitude to him for having so lpng preserved to them the blessings of public tranquillity ; and their earnest hqpe , that no circumstances would induce him to

    implicate his people in affairs foreign to their interests , and fatal to their repose . The question was three times put , and as often carried in favour ol the -acldress . The populous t » wn of Manchester followed ; a simijar address was there proposed and carried , and the example thus begun might have extended still further ; but although , such was the sense of the majority , yet the sunne circumstance which has occurred in other

    places , of a riot iq favour of the existing administration , took place on this occasion in Liverpool , and , the address , although voted by the meeting , and left for the signature of the inhabitants at the town-hall , was torn in pieces by a lawmob and

    le ^ s scattered through the streets . How fufcty t ** e apprehensions which were then expressed of ibe consequences that must ensue from involving the country in a war have been since reali ^ d , the present situation of the manufacturing and commercial part of du * county , and the thousands of induitriof *

    Obituary.

    OBITUARY .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1809, page 232, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1735/page/56/