“I fell asleep on board the vessel where I worked, and, before I woke up, she set sail and carried me off.”

“Have n't I always treated you. well, Tony?”

To this question Burns made no answer.

“Have n't I always given you money when you needed?”

“You have always given me twelve and a half-cents once a year.”

Nothing further passed between the two, but in this brief colloquy Burns had already made admissions decisive of his fate. While it was going on, Brent stood gazing steadily in the prisoner's face, but exchanged no words, not even salutations with him. The object of the wily slaveholder had been accomplished, and with his friend he now took his departure. As he passed out, the Marshal put the inquiry, “Well, that's the man, is it?” to which Suttle responded, “Yes.”

No sooner had they gone, than the door was again strongly barred, and Burns was left to pass the night with the men by whom he had been arrested. Recalling his thoughts from Suttle, he now turned with indignant scorn upon Butman.

“I thought,” said he, “you arrested me for stealing.”

“I was afraid of a mob,” replied the dastard,“and that was the reason why I did n't arrest you when you left the store.” He added that he had been standing on the opposite side of the street, watching for Burns.

The speeches of both, on the present occasion, were so imperfectly reported that the public abroad had but a faint conception of their power and effect. Mr. Phillips was the first to speak.

“The city government is on our side,” began the orator; a storm of cheers greeted the announcement. “I am glad,” continued he, “to hear the applause of that sentiment. If the city police had been warned on the Sims case, as they are now, not to lift a finger in behalf of the kidnappers, under pain of instant dismissal, Thomas Sims would have been here in Boston to-day. To-morrow is to determine whether we are ready to do the duty they have left us to do. There is now no law in Massachusetts, and when law ceases, the people may act in their own sovereignty. I am against squatter sovereignty in Nebraska, and against kidnappers' sovereignty in Boston. See to it, that tomorrow, in the streets of Boston, you ratify the verdict of Faneuil Hall, that Anthony Burns has no master but his God.

“The question is to be settled to-morrow, whether we shall adhere to the case of Shadrach or the case of Sims. Will you adhere to the case of Sims, and see this man carried down State Street, between two hundred men? I have been talking seventeen years about slavery, and it seems to me I have talked to little purpose, for within three years, two slaves can be carried away from Boston. Nebraska, I call knocking a man down, and this is spitting in his face after he is down. When I heard of this case, and that Burns was locked up in that Court House, my heart sank within me.

“See to it, every one of you, as you love the honor of Boston, that you watch this case so closely that you can look into that man's eyes. When he comes up for trial, get a sight at him, and don't lose sight of him. There is nothing like the mute eloquence of a suffering man to urge to duty; be there, and I will trust the result. If Boston streets are to be so often desecrated by the sight of returning fugitives, let us be there, that we may tell our children we saw it done. There is now no use for Faneuil Hall. Faneuil Hall is the purlieus of the Court House to-morrow morning, where the children of Adams and Hancock may prove that they are not bastards. Let us prove that we are worthy of liberty.”

Theodore Parker followed his coadjutor. Addressing the assembly as “fellow subjects of Virginia,” he poured forth a torrent of the most bitter invective. At the close,11 See Appendix M. he proposed that when the meeting adjourned, it should be to meet in Court Square, the following morning, at nine o'clock. “To-night,” shouted a hundred voices in reply. The speaker stood silent, as one in doubt. At length he called on those who were in favor of proceeding that night to the Square, to raise their hands: half the assembly did so. But now the excitement burst through all bounds,—the vast Hall was filled with one wild roar of voices. “To the Court House,” was shouted in one quarter; “to the Revere House for the slave-catchers,” was answered back from another. In vain Mr. Parker attempted to allay the tumult,—his voice was submerged in the billows of sound, and he stood gesticulating like one in a dumb show. A potent master of the weapons that are fitted to goad the public mind even to madness, he lacked the sovereign power to control and subdue at will large masses of men. Amid the uproar, Wendell Phillips again ascended the platform. The different quality of the two men then appeared. Ere half a dozen sentences had fallen from his lips, the assembly had subsided into profound stillness.

“Let us remember,” said he, “where we are and what we are going to do. You have said, to-night, you will vindicate the fair fame of Boston. Let me tell you, you won't do it by groaning at the slave-catchers at the Revere House—by attempting the impossible act of insulting a slave-catcher. If there is a man here who has an arm and a heart ready to sacrifice anything for the freedom of an oppressed man, let him do it to-morrow. If I thought it would be done to-night, I would go first. I don't profess courage, but I do profess this: when there is a possibility of saving a slave from the hands of those who are called officers of the law, I am ready to trample any statute or any man under my feet to do it, and am ready to help any one hundred men to do it. But wait until the daytime. The vaults of the banks in State street sympathize with us. The Whigs, who have been kicked once too often, sympathize with us. It is in your power so to block up every avenue, that the man cannot be carried off. Do not, then, balk the effort of to-morrow by foolish conduct to-night, giving the enemy the alarm. You that are ready to do the real work, be not carried away by indiscretion which may make shipwreck of our hopes. The zeal that won't keep till to-morrow will never free a slave.”

By this time the orator had his audience well in hand, when suddenly a man at the entrance of the Hall shouted: “Mr. Chairman, I am just informed that a mob of negroes is in Court Square attempting to rescue Burns. I move that we adjourn to Court Square.” A formal vote was not waited for, and the next instant the whole mass was pouring down the broad stairs and along the streets toward the new theatre of action.

It is necessary to return and follow the movements of the little band that had pledged themselves to the forcible rescue of Burns. A place of rendezvous had been appointed, but when the time for meeting arrived, only six of the seven appeared. The defection of their faint-hearted companion did not shake the purpose of the rest. Feeling, however, that their number was too small, they agreed to go forth, and, if possible, secure each man six coadjutors. This effort was so successful that in a short time the number of confederates was increased to nearly twenty-five. Their weapons of attack were various; some were armed with revolvers, some carried axes, and some butcher's cleavers that had just been purchased and were left in their paper coverings for better concealment. In a passage-way hard by, a large stick of timber had been secretly deposited to serve as a battering-ram. Soon after nine o'clock, everything was ready for the assault. It was at this juncture that the alarm had been given to the meeting in Faneuil Hall.

Scarcely had the crowd from the Hall begun to pour into the Square when the assault was commenced. The lamps that lighted the Square had already been extinguished, so that under cover of darkness the assailants might more easily escape detection. Strangely neglecting the eastern entrance, which was not secured at the time,11 Col. Suttle happened to be in the Court House at the time, and escaped by the east door after the attack commenced, leaving to Batchelder and others the business of defending his property at the risk and sacrifice of their lives. they passed round to the west side and commenced the attack in that quarter. The Court House on that side presented to the eye an unbroken facade of granite two hundred feet long and four stories high. In the lower part were three entrances, closed by massive two-leaved doors which were secured by heavy locks and bolts. Against the middle one of these doors, the beam which had been previously provided, was now brought to bear with all the force that ten or twelve men could muster. At the same moment, one or two others plied their axes against the panels. As the quick, heavy

On appearing, he was asked if he would undertake to serve the writ at such a time as the one mentioned. With some hesitation he agreed to do so, provided the sanction of the Governor, Attorney-General, and City Solicitor of Boston were first obtained. This answer was thought satisfactory and the conference ended. On the next day, the Coroner and Alderman Dunham sought an interview on the subject with City Solicitor Hillard. The Solicitor gave it as his opinion that no such interval of time as they contemplated would occur, and strongly advised them against proceeding with the writ.

While this was passing, two citizens of Boston, Samuel E. Sewall and Henry I. Bowditch, were moving in another direction and with a bolder purpose. Mr. Sewall was a lineal descendant of that ancient Chief Justice of Massachusetts who, having been betrayed by the spirit of the age into giving his judicial sanction to the prosecutions for witchcraft, soon vindicated his innate nobleness by a solemn act of repentance in a public assembly of his fellow-citizens. The finer qualities of this Puritan judge re-appeared in Mr. Sewall. A man of pure and upright life, an eminent lawyer, a wise and incorruptible friend of public liberty, he naturally rose to be a conspicious character, and was more than once honored with the nomination and support of his party for the office of Governor. Mr. Bowditch was the son of America's most illustrious mathematician, the interpreter of Laplace. He was a physician of eminence, and, like Mr. Sewall, uncompromisingly hostile to the fugitive slave act.

It was the desire of these gentlemen to have a writ of replevin served with instant dispatch; they were quite prepared to deliver Burns from duress without waiting for the Commissioner's decision. But there was a serious difficulty in the way. Burns was in the custody of an officer who had expressed a determination to resist the state process, and who had a strong civil and military force to back him. It was plain that if the writ was to be efficiently served, if Burns was to be taken out of the Marshal's hands, it could only be done by the aid of a force sufficient to overcome that which he had at his command. Provided such a force were furnished him, Coroner Smith expressed his readiness to serve the writ and release the prisoner. The necessity of this condition was apparent, and Mr. Sewall with his coadjutor proceeded to take measures for obtaining the required aid.

Under the circumstances, the ordinary posse comitatus was out of the question; for it was not to be expected that an undisciplined throng of civilians would be able to make head against the serried ranks and balls and bayonets of the Marshal's United States troops. The two gentlemen, therefore, repaired to the State House for the purpose of obtaining, if possible, a military force through the intervention of the Governor, Emory Washburn. They met him, by chance, in the office of the Secretary of State, and at once made known the object of their visit. Without informing him that a writ of replevin had actually been issued, they put the case by supposition. A coroner of the city, they said, was ready to undertake the service of such a writ, provided he could be sustained by a proper force. They asked, therefore, whether the Governor could not order out a sufficient number of the militia to enable him to do so. In reply, the Governor first reminded them of the singular spectacle which would be presented to the world if he were to comply with the request. The militia were already under arms, by order of the Mayor of Boston, to keep the peace and, suppress any attempt, by a popular outbreak, to wrest Burns from the custody of the United States Marshal: was it seemly for the Governor, he inquired, to command the same militia to aid one of the state officers in taking him by force from the same custody? Aside from this view of the case, he said that while he was willing to do anything in his power to aid their wishes, he thought that the officer to whom the writ might be committed, was invested by the statute with all necessary power to summon to his aid the posse comitatus. But he doubted whether he had authority to order out troops to aid in serving a particular precept, unless a case of threatened violence or actual breach of the peace could be made out, sufficient to call into exercise the general power confided to the Commander-in- chief for such an exigency. He then read the provisions of the statute upon the subject, and asked Mr. Sewall whether he, as a lawyer, considered that the Governor had authority to call out troops for the express purpose of executing the writ in question. To this Mr. Sewall replied that he had looked at the matter, himself, and had great doubts if the Governor had the authority. But he added that in his view the fugitive slave act was unconstitutional, and that, consequently, the detention of Burns by the Marshal was unlawful. In answer to this, the Governor said, that whatever might be his private opinion on that point, he had been taught to regard the judiciary as the interpreters of the law; that he understood the courts to hold the law to be constitutional; and that therefore he felt bound, in his official relations, to regard it as such.

Mr. Sewall now raised a different question. By the statute providing for the writ of replevin, no person could enjoy its benefit who was “in the custody of a public officer of the law by the force of a lawful warrant or other process, civil or criminal, issued by a court of competent jurisdiction.” Burns was in the custody of the United States Marshal by virtue of a Commissioner's warrant. Mr. Sewall did not regard the Commissioner as a court of competent jurisdiction, and consequently held that Burns was entitled to the writ. But the Governor, planting himself on the decisions of the Supreme Court, held that the warrant was lawful, and that Burns could not be properly interfered with while in the Marshal's custody. Yielding for the moment to this view of the case, Mr. Sewall now inquired if the Governor would order out troops to aid in serving the writ, after Burns, by virtue of the Commissioner's certificate, should have passed out of the Marshal's custody and before he should have been removed from the State? To this question, which was substantially the same as that which Coroner Smith had propounded to the City Solicitor, it does not appear that the Governor returned any specific answer, nor was it important that he should. Mr. Sewall was satisfied, on a subsequent examination of the fugitive slave act, that the Commissioner's certificate would not give Suttle the immediate possession of Burns, but that he would remain in the custody of the Marshal without any interval until he should be surrendered in Virginia. No opportunity, therefore, would be afforded for the writ upon Suttle within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.

Having delivered his own views on the subject, the Governor proposed that Mr. Sewall and his coadjutor should lay the case before the Attorney General, John H. Clifford, the legal adviser of the Executive. If that officer were able to suggest any lawful mode in which he could aid in serving the writ, he was ready to adopt it. Here the interview ended. Mr. Sewall at once sought the Attorney-General; but, not finding him readily, desisted from further pursuit, in the conviction that his opinion would be of an adverse character.11 A little later in the day, John A. Andrew, a member of the Suffolk Bar, waited on the Governor for the same purpose, but on learning of the interview with the other gentlemen and its result, he did not press the matter. The Governor received no other application of any sort on the subject.

The conduct of the Governor in this affair was subjected, at the time, to severe animadversion. But those who blamed him most were least informed respecting the facts. Mr. Sewall, who, as one of the parties, was familiar with all the circumstances, acquitted and justified him. With the opinions which the Governor entertained respecting his constitutional obligations, there was, Mr. Sewall thought, no other course for him to pursue. There, however, the justification stopped. The conduct might be justified by the opinions of the Governor, but the opinions themselves were condemned.

It has been seen that the Governor felt bound, whatever his private opinions or predilections, to defer to the authority of the Supreme Court. A more comprehensive survey of the action of that Court would have furnished him with equal authority for an opposite line of conduct. The particular decision upon which he rested was that in the case of Sims. But there was an earlier judgment of the Court, which, in the opinion of eminent jurists, furnished ample sanction for the application of the writ of replevin to persons in precisely the predicament of Burns. This opinion was directly connected with the restoration of the writ of personal replevin to the statute book, in 1837. The committee of the legislature which reported the bill restoring the writ, also made an elaborate report on the general subject of the trial by jury in questions of personal freedom. In this report the opinion of the Court was cited, and its vital bearing upon the question, whether a person arrested as a fugitive slave was entitled to the writ of replevin, was illustrated in the comments of the committee. Very pertinently, the-opinion had its origin in the arrest of a fugitive slave. One, Griffith, had been indicted for an assault on a negro named Randolph. In his defence, he alleged that Randolph was his slave, and that, by virtue of the fugitive slave law of 1793, he had a right to seize him. In their reply, the prosecuting officers presented arguments against the validity of that law. The Chief Justice, Parker, in giving his opinion, thus disposed of them: “It is said that the act which is passed on this subject is contrary to the amendment of the Constitution securing the people in their persons and property against seizures,&c., without a complaint on oath, &c. It is very obvious that slaves are not parties to the Constitution, and the amendment has relation to the parties. * * * * But it is objected that a person may, in this summary manner, seize a freeman. It may be so, but it would be attended with mischievous consequences to the person making the seizure, and a habeas corpus would lie to obtain the release of the person seized.” And if a habeas corpus, said the committee, then of course the concurrent remedies, including the writ of personal replevin.

“The principle here stated,” observed the committee, “when carried out relieves the act of Congress (the act of 1793) of all its obnoxious features, and places the question, under the law, precisely where the committee would have placed it, under the constitution, without the law. It holds that the proceedings are constitutional as to slaves, and unconstitutional as to freemen, and gives the person seized, the right to try the question as to his character, by any suitable independent process. And this principle must extend to his situation, either before or after the certificate, for the jurisdiction of the magistrate, upon the same reasoning, must be special and limited, depending entirely for its foundation upon the fact whether the person so seized be a slave; for if he be not, the whole proceedings are void, as against the express provisions of the constitution. It makes, then, the claimant act at his peril throughout, and gives the person seized an opportunity to try, in another form, the applicability of the process to him, and that, too, wherever he chooses.”

The committee therefore expressed the opinion that “whether the law be considered unconstitutional on the one hand, or valid on the other, upon the construction recognized by the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth, the same result must be arrived at. In either case, a person seized under the act of Congress, before or after certificate given, may have an independent process, under which he can try his right to the character of a freeman.” In concluding their report, the committee remarked, in view of the fact that the writ of personal replevin might be used by persons arrested as fugitive slaves in the investigation of their claim to freedom, that “they looked to that use of the writ as one of its just and legitimate offices.” 11 Report of the Judiciary Committee “on the trial by jury in questions of personal freedom” made to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, March 27, 1837. The author of the report was James C. Alvord.

The court's opinion and the committee's interpretation of it had reference to the fugitive slave act of 1793. But they were equally applicable to the fugitive slave act of 1850, for they asserted the general principle that no act of Congress could deprive a person of his constitutional right to try the question of his freedom. Accepting this exposition, planting himself by the side, deferring to the venerable authority, of Chief Justice Parker and his associates on the Supreme Bench, the Governor might have said to Mr. Sewall: “Burns is entitled by the constitution and the law to the writ of personal replevin. Make your writ and bid the officer serve it upon the United States Marshal forthwith. If he refuses to obey, let the officer summon the posse comitatus and enforce the service. If the Marshal resists with the military force under his command, the case will have arisen in which it becomes the duty of the Governor by law to act. Then make your application to me, and I will call out troops to aid in enforcing the writ.” 11 The whole argument may be briefly stated thus: 1. The fugitive slave acts of 1793 and 1850 are commensurate as to “competent jurisdiction.” 2. The constitutionality of both has been affirmed by the Supreme Court in two different decisions. 3. The right of the person seized, to an independent trial of the question of his character, is affirmed in the first decision and not denied in the second, 4. The writ of personal replevin was provided by the Commonwealth expressly to secure such a trial; therefore, 5. The affirmation of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave act of 1850 is no bar to the use of the writ of personal replevin for the purpose of determining the character of the person seized as a slave.

The interview with the Governor took place on Monday, the twenty-ninth. Nothing further was done respecting the writ until the following Wednesday. By that time the prisoner's case had assumed an unexpectedly favorable aspect. It was anticipated that the Commissioner would set him at liberty. In such a case threats had been made that Suttle would seize him again without warrant and carry him off.22 Suttle had resolved, under the advice of District Attorney Hallett, if the Commissioner's decision should be adverse to his claim, to seize Burns by force, remove him from the State, and for justification of the act rely on his ability to prove ownership after getting back to Virginia. This purpose was announced by Suttle, on the morning of June 1, to a circle of his southern friends at the Revere House, and in the hearing of the Rev. M. D. Conway, of Washington, who subsequently stated the fact to Charles M. Ellis, Esq., of Boston, and the Rev. George E. Ellis, of Charlestown. To meet this contingency (and no other), a writ of replevin was made on that day and placed in the hands of Coroner Smith. The contingency did not occur, and the writ remained as waste paper in the officer's possession.33 See Appendix B.

The first announcement of this purpose was made in open court on Saturday morning. The counsel for Burns had moved for a postponement of the examination, for the purpose of gaining a little time to prepare the defence. To this the counsel for Suttle objected.

“Let the examination proceed now,” said one of them, Edward G. Parker, “and if Burns is given up, I am authorized to say that he can be purchased.”

Among those who heard this statement, was one who had already done and suffered much in behalf of fugitive slaves. This man was the Rev. L. A. Grimes, the pastor of a congregation of colored persons in Boston. Approaching the counsel, Mr. Grimes inquired upon what authority the statement had been made. “Col. Suttle has agreed to sell Burns,” was the reply. Mr. Parker added that the sum which he had agreed to accept was twelve hundred dollars. But a condition annexed was, that the sale should be made after the surrender had been decreed. Mr. Grimes inquired if Col. Suttle would not consent to receive the sum named and close a bargain before the surrender. The counsel thought not. Bent on securing this concession, Mr. Grimes sought an interview with the Marshal, by whom, on mentioning his object, he was referred to Col. Suttle. An introduction of the slave-rescuer to the slave-hunter took place, and a long conversation ensued. Suttle enlarged on the fact of his ownership, on the kindness with which he had treated Burns, and also on the latter's good character. But to all suggestions for a sale before the surrender, he refused to listen. A private interview between Suttle and his counsel followed. At the close of it, the latter sought Mr. Grimes and informed him that their client had at length agreed to sell his slave before the surrender was made. The prompt response of Mr. Grimes was—“Between this time and ten o'clock to-night, I'll have the money ready for you; have the emancipation papers ready for me at that hour.”

A busy day's work lay before the benevolent pastor. The morning was already well advanced, and before the day closed, twelve hundred dollars were to be raised, not one of which had yet been subscribed, Without resources himself, he had to seek out others who might be disposed to contribute to the enterprise. A wealthy citizen, whose sympathies had hitherto been on the side of the fugitive slave act, had been heard to say that if Burns could be purchased he would head the subscription list with a hundred dollars. Informed of this by Suttle's counsel, Mr. Grimes called at the gentleman's house, and on the third attempt succeeded in finding him. The gentleman admitted that he had made the pledge already mentioned, but he now declined to redeem it. He had since met a person, he said, who had assured him that the slave could not be purchased,—that he must be tried.

“I have heard no one take that ground but the United States District Attorney,” said Mr. Grimes.

The gentleman confessed that it was Attorney Hallett who had dissuaded him from acting upon his benevolent impulse. Without money, but with a promise from him to give “something,” which was never redeemed, Mr. Grimes left the house.

He now bent his steps toward the mansion of a gentleman distinguished for his immense wealth, his rare munificence, and the eminent position which he had formerly held in the service of his country abroad. Everything conspired to ally him with the conservative class of society, and it was with them that public opinion commonly ranked him. What view he would take of the passing events was uncertain. Mr. Grimes found him in an unusually discomposed frame of mind. The announcement of his errand at once called forth an emphatic expression of sentiment and feeling. He denounced the fugitive slave act as “an infamous statute,” and declared that he would have nothing to do with it. It had been the cause of bloodshed and slaughter, and would be the cause of still more. Referring to the death of Batchelder, he intimated that, as the man had been killed while voluntarily assisting to execute an infamous law, he had no regrets to express at the occurrence. He could give no money to purchase the freedom of Burns, as that, in his view, would be an implied sanction of the law; but, if Mr. Grimes needed any money for his own uses, he might draw on him for the required sum, or even for a larger amount.11 The above was written while ABBOTT LAWRENCE was yet living. Now that death has set his seal on all his acts and opinions, I need no longer hesitate to name him as the person alluded to. Let the sentiments expressed in the text go forth to the public under the sanction of such a name. Thus encouraged, Mr. Grimes took his leave.

A gentleman belonging to a family distinguished for its ability, and especially for its devotion to the fugitive slave law, was next applied to. At once intimating his readiness to contribute to the proposed purchase, he suggested that his brother, a wealthy merchant, should be summoned for the same purpose. The latter soon made his appearance and entered heartily into the scheme. Each subscribed one hundred dollars on condition that the whole sum should be raised. Both were urgent in pressing forward the matter; “the man,” said one of them, “must be out of the Court House tonight.” If the sum should not be made up, he was ready to increase his subscription. From another distinguished citizen the sum of fifty dollars was obtained; he was the only member of the national legislature from Massachusetts who had perilled his reputation by voting for the fugitive slave bill. A subscription was next solicited from a certain rich broker in State street. He had been an ardent supporter of the fugitive act; on the occasion of sending Sims back into slavery he had offered five thousand dollars, if need were, to secure that triumph. Mr. Grimes now found him in a different mood. He would give nothing to purchase Burns—there would be no end to demands of that sort; but he would readily contribute one hundred dollars, he said, to procure a coat of tar and feathers for the slave-catchers. Apparently, his patriotism cost him nothing on either occasion. Another millionaire of the city, who enjoyed a reputation for liberality, upon being solicited to subscribe, declined on the ground that it would only furnish an inducement for slaveholders to repeat their reclamations. At the same time, he declaimed with great bitterness against the law.

Hamilton Willis, a broker in State street, responded to the call with the most active sympathy. He urged Mr. Grimes to obtain pledges for the necessary amount, and agreed to advance the money upon those pledges. Another noble contributor was one who, as a Trustee of the Emigrant Aid Society, afterward distinguished himself in peopling Kansas with freemen. This was J. M. S. Williams, a native of Virginia, but then a merchant in Boston. Subscribing at once a hundred dollars, he gave assurance that whatever sum might be deficient in the end, he would make good.

Of those who were present, the most conspicuous, if not the most numerous portion, were pimps and bullies, whose vile passions and brutal natures had left a permanent impress upon their persons. Some of them, now appearing as officers of justice, were convicted criminals and had served out their sentence in the prisons. These carried it boldly, as though they had been presented with the freedom of the court-room; while the few good citizens present,—some, men of substance, and some, men of renown,—took their seats quietly as being conscious that they were there on sufferance. Nothing, perhaps, more clearly revealed the nature of the business in hand than the fact that the Marshal was compelled to rely for aid, chiefly, on the most depraved class of men in the community.

At length the court was opened. Alone, upon the bench from which Judge Story had been wont to dispense justice, sat the Commissioner, evidently oppressed by the load which he had chosen to take upon himself. In his appropriate place on the right stood the Marshal, Watson Freeman, in whose massy face, seamed by small pox, a certain look of good humor somewhat modified the prevailing relentlessness of its aspect. Over against the Commissioner, upon a seat just without the bar, sat Anthony Burns. On either side of him, as guards, sat two or three brutal-looking men, and in front of him, just within the bar, were four or five more, with pistols and bludgeons lurking in their pockets and but half concealed from the offended eyes of the spectators. At the clerk's desk, apart, sat the United States District Attorney, Benjamin F. Hallett, whose business there did not clearly appear. The counsel for the slaveholder and the slave respectively, the reporters for the press, the slaveholder and his southern friends, Theodore Parker, the Rev. L. A. Grimes, Morris, the colored lawyer of Boston, and some few others occupied the seats within the bar; while a moderate number outside completed the assemblage.

The first incident in the proceedings illustrated the character of the tribunal. Charles M. Ellis, the junior counsel for Burns, began with a protest against proceeding in the case under the extraordinary circumstances of the occasion.

“It is not fit,” said he, “that we should proceed while counsel here (meaning the counsel for Suttle) bear arms. It is not fit that the prisoner should sit here with shackles on his limbs. It is not fit that we should proceed while the court-room is packed with armed men, and all the avenues to it are filled with soldiery, making it difficult for the friends of the prisoner to obtain access to him. I protest against proceeding under these circumstances.”

“The examination must proceed,” was the prompt response of the Commissioner. But Mr. Hallett, whose offensive and unexplained presence within the bar has already been alluded to, now joined issue, and proceeded to harangue the Commissioner in reply to what had been said. The Commissioner, immediately interrupting, reminded him that, as he had already decided the point, any further remarks were unnecessary. The District Attorney persisted. The conduct of the Marshal, he said, had been called in question, and he was present to act as his counsel. Again the Commissioner interposed: “Mr. Hallett, these remarks are irrelevant and entirely out of order.” But the Attorney, without even pausing in his speech, went on with raised voice, inflamed countenance, and increased vehemence of manner, not only to repel the reflections that had been cast upon the Marshal, but also to instruct the Commissioner in his own duty. Insolence triumphed, and the Commissioner sank back in his seat with a helpless air, until the browbeating was ended. Men who had been wont to see the Bench treated with the profoundest respect by the Bar, who had known Daniel Webster bow in silence and resume his seat at the bidding of a common pleas judge, looked on indignant and amazed. Why was not the Attorney ordered into instant custody? Had the Court no power to protect itself?

Another incident, that occurred at a later stage of the examination, furnished an answer to this question. In attempting to return to the courtroom, after one of the short recesses that were reluctantly granted, Mr. Dana, the senior counsel for Burns, found his progress obstructed by the bayonets of the guard. In vain he urged his well known relation to the prisoner; he was kept waiting upon the stairs until it was the pleasure of the Marshal to permit him to pass on. The outrage was made known to the Commissioner, and he was moved to instruct the Marshal upon the subject. “I have no authority to direct the actions of the Marshal,” was the short but pregnant answer, while that officer stood grimly smiling upon the foiled advocate of Freedom. The Marshal did not sustain the relation of a sheriff to a justiciary court; he was in no wise amenable to the Commissioner. He might surround the court-room with soldiery, admit or exclude whom he pleased, subject one party in the suit to personal outrages and bestow special indulgences on the other, and there was no one to call him to account. The Commissioner was not supreme in his own court. Under this confessed state of things, the examination went forward.

The case of the claimant had already been presented, while as yet Anthony had no one to defend him; but now, upon the demand of his counsel, the Commissioner ordered that the examination should commence anew. The complaint was read by Edward G. Parker, the junior counsel for the claimant. William Brent was then placed upon the stand. It appeared that he was a slaveholding grocer of Richmond, Virginia. He testified that he was the personal friend of Col. Suttle, and had long been acquainted with him. He had known him as a slaveholder, and as the owner of a slave named Anthony Burns. He had himself hired Anthony of Suttle for three years, and had also acted as the latter's agent in hiring him out to one Millspaugh. In this way he had come to have intimate personal knowledge of Suttle's ownership of Burns, and also of Burns' personal appearance. He now stated that the prisoner was the same Anthony Burns whom he had so well known in Virginia. He further said that he had last seen Anthony in that State on the twentieth of March, 1854; on the twenty- fourth, Anthony was missing, and on the Tuesday following, he communicated the fact to Col. Suttle, who was then residing in Alexandria. But of the manner in which Burns left Virginia he knew nothing.

The counsel for the claimant now proposed to put in, as evidence, the admissions which Anthony had made since his arrest.

“We object,” said Mr. Ellis; “the sixth section of the fugitive slave law provides that the evidence of the alleged fugitive shall not be taken.”

“The admissions and confessions of Burns are a very different thing from testimony,” replied Seth J. Thomas, the claimant's senior counsel; “as a party in the suit—the defendant—he is not privileged to testify.”

“It is the height of cruelty to the prisoner,” urged Mr. Dana, “to take advantage of the only power he has under this law—that of speech—to his detriment, when the claimant, the other party in the suit, has not only his own right, but, in these alleged confessions, a portion of the prisoner's.”

On the decision of this question, as the result proved, hung the fate of Anthony Burns. Even at this early stage of the proceedings, before the nature of the defence was known, the important bearing of the point was discerned. A breathless silence reigned in the court-room.

“I think,” said the Commissioner, “that the word ‘testimony,’ in the law, must be regarded as referring to evidence given by a witness, and not to confessions or admissions; but I am unwilling to prejudice the liberty of the prisoner, and his counsel may have the right to pass that question for the present.”

“We desire that the questions may be asked and the answers taken down for future use, if necessary,” said the claimant's counsel.

The Court assented, and the witness proceeded to relate the conversation that took place, as follows: “Burns said he did not intend to run away, but being at work on board a vessel, and getting tired, fell asleep, when the vessel sailed with him on board. On Mr. Suttle's going into the room after the arrest, the first word from Burns was, ‘How do you do, Master Charles?’ The next thing was, ‘Did I ever whip you, Anthony?’ The answer was, ‘No.’ The next question was, ‘Did I ever hire you where you did not want to go?’ The reply was, ‘No.’ The next question was, ‘Did you ever ask me for money when it was not given you?’ The answer was, ‘No.’ Mr. Suttle then asked, ‘Did I not, when you were sick, take my bed from my own house for you?’ and the answer was, ‘Yes.’ He then recognized me, and said, ‘How do you do, Master William?’ Being asked substantially if he was willing to go back, he said he was.”11 The important discrepancies between this statement of the conversation and that given on pp. 18, 19, chap. I., will be apparent at a glance. That statement was taken down from the lips of Burns by the author of this work. Burns emphatically denied the correctness of Brent's report of the conversation, and declared his readiness to make oath to the correctness of his own. As Col. Suttle stated in writing over his own signature, after he had returned to Virginia with his recovered property, that he continued to regard Burns as “strictly truthful,” the reader will have at least his sanction for believing the statement of Burns in preference to that of Brent.

With some further unimportant details, the examination in chief was ended. A close cross-examination followed, but failed to elicit any additional evidence materially affecting the case. Throughout, the testimony of this witness was direct and unequivocal, and was delivered with an air of careless superiority, which was natural to a slaveholder testifying against a slave, and was not uncongenial to the peculiar tribunal in whose character there was nothing to overawe.

In giving in his testimony, the witness spoke of Burns and his relatives as “slaves.” The counsel for Burns objected to this term. “The witness must not state any person to be a slave,” said the Commissioner, “without corroborative legal evidence.” This instruction from the Court caused not a little embarrassment to the witness. The habits of a Virginia slaveholder were inveterate upon him, and he found it difficult to extemporise forms of speech suited to the latitude of a free state and to the ears of a free people.

One, Caleb Page, a Boston truckman, was next called to corroborate Brent's testimony respecting the admissions of Burns on the night of the arrest. He had assisted in arresting the prisoner, and, according to his own statement, was “just the man wanted” by the officer for that business. His testimony added nothing to the strength of the claimant's case, and he had little reason to thank his employers for uselessly dragging him forth from obscurity to become an object of odium to his fellow citizens.

“We now propose,” said the claimant's counsel, “to put in the record of the court of Virginia as evidence.”

“It is in the case,” said the Commissioner, “subject to objection from counsel.”

The counsel for the defence examined the record. “We should have several objections to present against it,” said they, “which, in the absence of a jury, we should like to present to the Court.”11 See Appendix C.

“The record,” said Mr. Parker, “is decisive of two points: first, that Burns owed service and labor, second, that he escaped.” On the point of identity he requested the Commissioner to examine the marks upon the prisoner.

“Now, to entitle the claimant to this certificate, what must he prove? Two things. First, that Burns owed service and labor to him, the claimant. Second, that he escaped. How is he to prove these? The statute answers. He may apply to any court of record in Virginia, or judge thereof in vacation, and make satisfactory proof to such court or judge that Burns owes service or labor to him, and that he escaped. The court shall then cause a record to be made of the matter so proved, and also a general description of the person, with such convenient certainty as may be; and a transcript of such record, authenticated by the attestation of the seal of the court, being produced here where the person is found, and being exhibited to you, is to be taken by you as conclusive of the facts of escape and of service due. And upon the production by the claimant of other and further evidence, if necessary, in respect to the identity of the person escaping, he is to be delivered up to the claimant, with a certificate of his right to take him back; or his claim may be heard upon other satisfactory proofs competent in law.

“Such are the requirements. How have we met them? We have put in the transcript of a record. It is duly authenticated, and is conclusive upon the court of the two facts therein recited viz., that the claimant held one Anthony Burns to service or labor, and that he escaped. These two facts .are not open here. Then the question remains, is the person at the bar, Anthony Burns, as he is called,—nobody thinks of calling him anything else,—is he the Anthony Burns named in the record? If he is, there is an end of the case. The claim is made out and the certificate must follow. This, with simple proof of identity, would have been all that, in an ordinary case, counsel would have deemed it necessary to do.”

But this was an extraordinary case; and Mr. Thomas proceeded to say that, in addition to the record and proof of identity, be had deemed it proper to put in the testimony of Brent, and the admissions of Burns. As to the question of identity, there was the description in the record. This had been objected to by the opposing counsel as being loose, general in its terms, and defective in important particulars. Mr. Thomas contended that it was sufficiently exact to warrant its exclusive application to the prisoner.

He next considered the array of testimony presented by the defence to prove that Burns was in Massachusetts during the whole month of March, and that consequently Brent's story could not be true. The leading witness was Jones, the colored man. His testimony was disposed of by the attorney's simple declaration that it was “a story manufactured for the case.” But there were seven other witnesses who had corroborated that “story.” These were disposed of in an equally summary manner. “Jones,” said the claimant's counsel, “went to them and asked them if they did not remember the man he had with him cleaning the windows [at the Mattapan Works], told them this was the man, impressed them with this fact. They came into court with this impression, and made up their minds that he was.”

Having thus insisted that the unimpeached testimony for the defence was based upon combined falsehood and delusion, he proceeded by implication to admit its truth. Its force was too great, apparently, even for himself. “Brent,” said he, “ may possibly be mistaken as to the date.” But, the date was not material after all. “A crime of a high nature even may be charged to have been done on the twenty-fourth of March, and proved to have been done on the twenty-fourth of February.” Brent could not be mistaken as to the identity. But there was something stronger still—the prisoner's own admissions. Even if it were possible for Brent to be mistaken on the point of identity, such a mistake on the prisoner's part was not possible, and he had admitted that he was Suttle's slave.

The counsel for the defence had contended that, if Anthony owed service at all, it was not to Suttle but to Millspaugh. “If he is the man described,” said Mr. Thomas, “that is not open to inquiry. It had been said that under the Commissioner's certificate Anthony might be carried, not to Virginia, but to Cuba or Brazil. They do not tell us how,” replied Mr. Thomas. “If he is carried to Cuba, it will not be by your certificate.” It had been said that the certificate would send him into eternal bondage. “It is enough to say,” replied Mr. Thomas, “that it will send him to Virginia whence he came. When he gets there, he will have the same rights that he had before he came here. If that State don't sufficiently guard his rights, the fault is not yours nor mine.” It had been said that the fugitive slave law was unconstitutional. But, replied Mr. Thomas, it has been held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and by every judge before whom a case under it has arisen.

“It remains only,” said Mr. Thomas, “that I recapitulate the points already stated. The record is conclusive of two facts, that the person owed service, and that he escaped. That record, with the testimony of Brent and the admissions of Burns, proves the identity. I take leave of the case, confident in the proofs presented, confident in the majesty of the law, and confident that the determination here will be just.”

At the conclusion of Mr. Thomas's argument, the court was adjourned until Friday morning, the second of June.

The police were to clear the streets, they only were to come in contact with the people and force them back beyond the outer barrier of the reserved section. When this was complete and the space clear, the military were to march in and take up the several positions assigned them. The failure of the police to accomplish their part of the task made it necessary to call in the aid of the military. The selection of the officer to whom the business was entrusted, was significant of the influences that controlled the proceedings. This was Isaac H. Wright. He was one of the very few men of Massachusetts who had set at naught the principles of their fathers by volunteering in the war with Mexico. The fellow-officer of Gen. Pierce in that wicked raid, his equal in military skill, not less his equal in moral character, scarcely his inferior as a claimant upon his party for promotion, of congenial habits, and like him often hazarding all upon a powerful flow of spirits, he was yet, unlike him, made to feel full sorely the caprice of Democracy in the distribution of political favors. For while Gen. Pierce, returning from the plains of Mexico, had been wafted into the Presidential Chair by prosperous winds blowing from all quarters, Col. Wright was left to exchange the sword for the hammer and to settle down into the humdrum life of an auctioneer. He was now, however, the captain of the Light Dragoons, and no officer in all the Massachusetts troops was more ready to assist in the execution of the fugitive slave act than himself. In committing to him and his mounted Dragoons the duty of driving the citizens from their thoroughfares and places of business, the authorities could not expect that any tenderness would temper their zeal.

In the midst of these preparations, the city was electrified by the following proclamation which was posted at the comers of the streets:

By this proclamation the whole city was in effect placed under martial law. It notified the citizens that the Mayor had, for the time, delegated his power to a military officer and abdicated his office. The legality of this step was afterward seriously called in question. Among others who took this ground, was Peleg W. Chandler, then a member of the Executive Council of the Commonwealth, and previously, Solicitor for the city of Boston. In an argument that never was refuted, he examined the Mayor's whole course in relation to the military, and maintained that in several particulars he had acted without warrant of law.11 See Boston Atlas of June 12th and 16th, 1854. I much regret that the length of this able argument precludes its insertion in this volume.

About eleven o'clock, the troops on the Common received orders to move down into Court and State streets. Each man had been supplied with eleven rounds of powder and ball, and, before moving, they proceeded to load in the presence of the assembled spectators. Then, without music, they marched down through the above-named streets, dropping off detachments at the several side streets, until the whole were posted.

Meanwhile, the Marshal had been making his own preparations. One hundred and twenty-five men were sworn in as specials. Some of these were tide-waiters, truckmen, and other dependents upon the Custom House; all were taken from the least reputable portion of the citizens of Boston. No better could be obtained. So great had been the change in public opinion since the extradition of Sims, when merchants, bankers, ship- owners, and others of repute had pressed forward with offers of personal service in forcing back that hapless negro into slavery and death. These specials were assembled in the Court House, and armed with cutlasses, pistols, and billies. They were then placed under the command of one Peter T. Dunbar, a Custom House truckman, who led them into an upper hall of the building, and there drilled them in marching and other exercises before the door of Burns's cell. Besides these, the Marshal had assembled five companies of United States troops, numbering one hundred and forty men; and, to complete his array, a brass cannon had been transported from the Navy Yard in Charlestown, at early dawn, and planted in the Square.

At eleven o'clock, Court Square presented a spectacle that became indelibly engraved upon the memories of men. The people had been swept out of the Square, and stood crowded together in Court street, presenting to the eye a solid rampart of living beings. At the eastern door of the Court House, stood the cannon, loaded, and with its mouth pointed full upon the compact mass. By its side stood the officer commanding the detachment of United States troops, gazing with steady composure in the same direction. It was the first time that the armed power of the United States had ever been arrayed against the people of Massachusetts. Men who witnessed the sight, and reflected upon its cause, were made painfully to recognize the fact, before unfelt, that they were the subjects of two governments.

After the decision, Burns remained in the courtroom awaiting the hour of his departure. The retainers of the Marshal crowded around him with attempts at consolation. His guards especially endeavored to cheer his spirits. They gave him four dollars; they assured him that it was their intention to purchase his freedom; they had made arrangements with his owner, they said, and had already obtained four hundred dollars toward the object. To all these professions and promises Burns paid little heed; they came from the same men who had captured him. At length, Deputy Marshal Riley entered the room and ordered him to be handcuffed. Burns earnestly remonstrated against the indignity; he gave assurances that he would pass through the streets quietly, if allowed to go unshackled, otherwise, he threatened to make every demonstration of violence in his power. Butman thereupon left the room, and sought the Marshal's permission to dispense with the instruments of disgrace; and, in spite of counsel to the contrary from some cowardly adviser who stood by, the request was granted. The slavery into which Burns was returning was an evil which he had borne from the cradle, but the iron fetters were symbols of disgrace which his unbroken spirit was not prepared to endure.

One o'clock had arrived, and yet the movement of the cortege was delayed. Meanwhile, Gen. Edmands had from time to time dashed into the Square, and, dismounting, held hurried conferences with the Marshal in the building. A bystander who heard their conversation, learned that the delay was caused by the General's inability to clear the streets, and his fear of being unable to accomplish the task he had undertaken.

At length, about two o'clock, the column was formed in the Square. First came a detachment of United States Artillery, followed by a platoon of United States Marines. After these followed the armed civil posse of the Marshal, to which succeeded two platoons of Marines. The cannon, guarded by another platoon of Marines, brought up the rear. When this arrangement was completed, Burns, accompanied by a officer on each side with arms interlocked, was conducted from his prison through a passage lined with soldiers, and placed in the centre of the armed posse. Immediately after the decision, Mr. Dana and Mr. Grimes had asked permission to walk with Burn's arm in arm, from the Court House to the vessel at the wharf; and the Marshal had given them his consent. At the last moment, he sought them out and requested that they would not insist upon the performance of his promise, because, in the opinion of some of the military officers, such a spectacle would add to the excitement. Mr. Dana declined to release the Marshal from his promise. The latter persisted in urging the abandonment of the purpose.

“Do I understand you,” asked Mr. Dana, “to say distinctly that we shall not accompany Burns, after having given your promise that we might?”

The Marshal winced under the pressure of this pointed question, but after a momentary reluctance answered firmly, “Yes.” Accordingly, without a single friend at his side, and hemmed in by a thickset hedge of gleaming blades, Burns took his departure.

The route from the Court House to the wharf had by this time become thronged with a countless multitude. It seemed as if the whole population of the city had been concentrated upon this narrow space. In vain the military and police had attempted to clear the streets; the carriage-way alone was kept vacant. On the sidewalks in Court and State streets, every available spot was occupied; all the passages, windows, and balconies, from basement to attic, overflowed with gazers, while the roofs of the buildings were black with human beings. It was computed that not less than fifty thousand people had gathered to witness the spectacle.

At different points along the route, were displayed symbols significant of the prevailing sentiment. A distinguished member of the Suffolk Bar, whose office was directly opposite the courtroom, and who was, at the time, commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, draped his windows in mourning. The example was quickly followed by others. From a window opposite the Old State House, was suspended a black coffin, upon which was the legend, The Funeral of Liberty. At a point farther on toward the wharf, a venerable merchant had caused a rope to be stretched from his own warehouse across State street to an opposite point, and the American flag, draped in mourning, to be suspended therefrom with the union down. On looking forth from his window some time after, he saw a man intent on casting a cord over the rope, for the purpose of tearing down the flag.

“Rascal!” shouted the old man, as he sallied forth with his long white hair streaming behind, “desist, or I'll prosecute you.”

“I am an American,” answered the other, “and am not going to see the flag of. my country disgraced.”

“I too am an American, and a native of this city,” retorted the State street merchant, “and I declare that my country is eternally disgraced by this day's proceedings. That flag hangs there by my orders: touch it at your peril.” The flag remained, until the transaction of which, in its dishonor, it was a fit emblem, was fully ended.

Along this Via Dolorosa, with its cloud of witnesses, the column now began to move. No music enlivened its march; the dull tramp of the soldiers on the rocky pavements, and the groans and hisses of the bystanders, were the only sounds. As it proceeded, its numbers were swelled by unexpected additions. Unauthorized, the zealous commander of the mounted Dragoons joined it with his corps. The Lancers, jealous of their rivals, hastened to follow the example: thus vanguard and rear-guard consisted of Massachusetts troops. In its progress, it went past the Old State House, where, in 1646, the founders of the Commonwealth enacted that solemn condemnation of human slavery, which stands at the beginning of this volume.11 This remark applies not to the building, but to the spot on which it stands. The present structure was erected in 1748. Just below, it passed over the ground where, in the Massacre of 1770, fell Attucks, the first negro martyr in the cause of American liberty.

Opposite the Custom House, the column turned at a right angle into another street. This cross movement suddenly checked the long line of spectators which had been pressing down, State street, parallel with the other body; but the rear portion, not understanding the nature of the obstruction, continued to press forward, and forced the front from the sidewalk into the middle of the Street. To the chafed and watchful military, this movement wore the aspect of an assault on the cortege; instantly some Lancers, stationed near, rode their horses furiously at the surging crowd, and hacked with their sabres upon the defenceless heads within their reach. Immediately after, a detachment of infantry charged upon the dense mass, at a run, with fixed bayonets. Some were pitched headlong down the cellar-ways, some were forced into the passages, and up flights of stairs, and others were overthrown upon the pavement, bruised and wounded.11 The assaults of the soldiers on the bystanders resulted in serious injury to several persons. One, A. L. Haskell, was attacked by Capt. Evans with a drawn sword, and cut on the back of the hand, for hissing and crying “shame.” Holding up to view his bleeding hand, Mr. Haskell asked the officer his name and business. Capt. Evans gave his name, and to the inquiry touching his business, replied, “to kill just such d—d rascals as you are.” A man named John Milton had his head laid open by a sabre cut, and was borne off to the hospital, where he lay for several weeks. But the most aggravated case was that of William H. Ela. While attempting to proceed quietly about his own business, he was assaulted by soldiers; beaten on the head with muskets; cut and bruised in the face; knocked down upon the pavement; and finally carried off and placed in confinement. These injuries impaired his mind to such an extent, that he was unable to go on with the business in which he was previously engaged, and which was his chief dependence for a livelihood. He afterward brought an action against Mayor Smith and others, for the assault, which became important as testing a question of law, and also as bringing to light material facts relating to the extradition of Burns.

While this was passing, the procession moved on and reached the wharf. A breach of trust had secured to the Federal authorities the use of this wharf for their present purpose. It was the property of a company, by whom it had been committed in charge to an agent. Without their knowledge and against their wishes, he had granted to the Marshal its use on this occasion. When arraigned afterward by his employers for such betrayal of trust, he replied that he had since been rewarded by an appointment to a place in the Custom House.

At the end of the wharf lay a small steamer which had been chartered by the United States Government. On board this vessel Burns was conducted by the Marshal, and immediately withdrawn from the sight of the gazing thousands into the cabin below. The United States troops followed and, after an hour's delay, the cannon was also shipped. At twenty minutes past three, o'clock, the steamer left the wharf, and went down the harbor.

“Can you drive a coach and take the management and care of horses?”

The slave is, it may be, totally ignorant of such business; but, if he fears his owner's displeasure, he will promptly answer that, he can. If he fears God (as some do) and speaks the truth, he knows well that stripes are likely to be his reward. Sometimes the owner stands by and answers for him,—falsely, it may be. When a bargain is made, the parties retire to execute it in writing. Besides the sum of money agreed upon, the contract usually stipulates that the person hiring shall provide the slave with a hat or cap, a pair of shoes, and two suits of clothes during the year. Of all these stipulations the slave is always well informed. When the transaction is completed, he is turned over to his new master, who orders him to appear at his house on a specified day. He may be indulged with a day or two more on the hiring- ground, but from thence, without returning home, he goes directly to his new field of service.

Most of the slaves belonging to Col. Suttle were subjected to this system of hiring, and thus it happened that Anthony, from his earliest years, was never much under his owner's eye. After the conversation relating to service with Brent, he repaired to the hiring-ground and soon fell in with a person named Foote, who was attracted by his appearance. The attraction was not mutual, and Anthony did not manifest much alacrity in satisfying Foote's inquiries. Col. Suttle stood by; and when Foote asked Anthony what he could do, replied for him with some sternness:

“He can do anything.”

It happened that Foote was in search of a boy to tend a steam engine in his saw-mill, and to this new and strange business the young and inexperienced slave felt a natural aversion. But his owner was not disposed to humor him a second time, and a bargain was concluded by which seventy-five dollars were to be paid for his services. Foote dwelt in the edge of Culpepper, bordering on Stafford county, and thither Anthony now went. He was at this time twelve or thirteen years of age.

The new home did not prove to be very agreeable. Foote and his wife were Yankees, and they presented no exception to the classification which assigns to apostates from northern principles of freedom a place among the severest taskmasters of the south. Young slaves scarcely three feet high were beaten by the mistress without mercy. Strapped upon a plank with their faces downward, they were belabored with an instrument of torture peculiar to slave-land, consisting of a strip of board perforated with holes and roughened with tar and sand. The air, drawn through the holes as the board smote upon the skin, would raise blisters, while the sand increased the smart without deeply cutting up the flesh and thereby diminishing the market value of the slave. Besides cruelties of this sort, the most niggardly fare was doled out, and occasionally, in a fit of gloomy merriment, Anthony would hold up to the sun his thin shaving of meat to show what a transparent humbug it was. His lot, however, was not one of unmixed evil, for, through the friendly teaching of a young daughter of his employer, he was enabled to make some further progress in his cherished pursuit of knowledge.

When he had been two or three months in the service of Foote, an accident of a serious nature befell him. He was busy about the discharge of his duties in the mill, when Foote, without giving him warning, set the machinery in motion, and Anthony's hand was caught by a wheel and shockingly mangled.11 The scar, or rather protruding broken bone, which disfigured his hand after the wound had healed, was commonly, but of course erroneously supposed, during his examination, to have resulted from abusive treatment by his master. This accident laid him aside from work for two months. He returned to Falmouth, where Col. Suttle then had a sheriff's office, and in this was provided with a lodging until he was able to resume his toil. On meeting his owner, he pointed to his broken hand, and significantly remarked, “That's ‘anything.’ ” Col. Suttle did not relish this taunting allusion to his former recommendation of Burns on the hiring-ground.

During this period of suffering and exemption from labor, occurred the crisis in Anthony's religious history. He had been the subject of strong religious impressions from early childhood. His mother, who was a devout woman, had tried to tell him something about God. He had been excited by the fervors of the camp-meeting. About the same time, the doctrines of Millerism had penetrated the little obscure Virginia county, and filled all hearts with alarm. It became the universal topic; white and black shared alike in the excitement. The barriers of class and caste were, for the time, thrown down, and never before had there been such unreserved communication between master and slave. To this was added a real cause of alarm; the scarlet fever swept over the district, leaving fearful ravages in its path. The young mind of Anthony shared in the general excitement produced by these unwonted causes, and he earnestly set about a preparation for the future life. He would retire into the recesses of the forest to pray, but there no light shone in upon him. Extravagant hopes and terrors alternately possessed him. At one time he looked momently to see Jesus appear in bodily shape before him; at another, believing that he actually saw the Fiend in the form of a serpent, he would spring from the ground, and with frantic outcries rush from the forest. Gradually, his extreme religious excitement subsided, but he never lost the sense of spiritual need. In this condition he remained until the accident occurred which has been already recorded.

Impelled by bodily anguish, and fearing that his injury might terminate fatally, he applied himself with renewed earnestness to the Friend of the afflicted. All at once a thought flashed through his mind:—“Here have I been praying to Jesus, whom I have never served, and have never thought of praying to the Devil, whom I have always served.” This was a new revelation. He saw it was unreasonable to expect help from a Being whose service he had not entered. He saw that repentance and reformation of life were the first steps for him to take. Thus put upon the right path by the Infinite Spirit working with his spirit, he soon found the help and peace that he sought.

After a suitable lapse of time, he applied to Col. Suttle, according to custom, for leave to be baptized; no slave being suffered to comply with that command of the Saviour or admitted to the church without a written permission from his owner. To Anthony's request, Col. Suttle, irritated by the prospect of loss from the maimed hand, returned a rough refusal, and even added words to wound the spirit of the young convert. If he joined the church, Suttle said, he would soon be drinking or following the women, like others. Anthony turned away with a heavy heart, but still with a silent resolve to pray that God would yet incline his owner to grant his request. The prayer was answered. Returning some time after from Foote's, where he had again resumed his labor in the mill, he unexpectedly met his owner in a carriage, on his way to the Springs. The latter kindly saluted him, and now of his own accord gave the requisite permission for baptism. Emboldened by such rare favor, Anthony petitioned for money to buy clothes in which to appear with decency on the occasion of taking his baptismal vows, and received two dollars,—sixteen- fold more than Col. Suttle ever gave him at any one time, before or after.

At the proper time he was baptized and received into the Baptist church at Falmouth. The church consisted of white freemen and black slaves. All assembled within the same walls for worship on the Sabbath, but a partition of boards separated the bond from the free. When the Holy Supper was administered, the cup was first carefully served to all of the privileged class, and afterward to their sable brethren. Those distinctions were not maintained in anticipation of heaven, but in deference to the prejudices of Virginia society. In the social religious meetings there was a somewhat nearer approach to the New Testament model, and the prayers and exhortations of the slaves were graciously suffered to intermingle with those proceeding from the master's lips.

Among the Christian slaves at the south there is a class of persons that bear the character of quasi-pastors or preachers. Without being formally set apart to the sacred office by any rite of ordination, they yet receive a sort of recognition from the church with which they may happen to be connected. Piety, a gift at exhortation, and a desire for the work of a preacher, are the requisite qualifications. All these were found in Anthony when, at the end of two years from the period of his baptism, he applied to his brethren for their recognition of him as a preacher. A day was appointed when he should exhibit his gifts to the assembled members of the church. Sitting around with ears more than usually critical, yet not without sympathy, they listened while Anthony addressed to them an exhortation from the desk. His effort proved satisfactory, and, at the close, pastor and brethren, taking him by the hand, bade him God speed. Thenceforth he exercised his now office as he had opportunity. Gathering a little congregation of slaves, sometimes in the kitchen of a friendly white person, sometimes in the rude cabin of a slave, he would lead them in their devotions and speak to them of the Gospel. These meetings, however, as well as all other assemblies consisting exclusively of slaves, were violations of Virginia law. Every such assembly, unless sanctioned by the presence of a white, was exposed to rude interruption, and the slaves that might be caught, to severe punishment. The patrols and guards that nightly walked their rounds were constantly on the watch to detect these secret meetings, and, in spite of all caution, they would occasionally succeed. Perhaps while the assembly were in the act of prayer, the door would be suddenly burst open by a throng of profane officials, each with cord in hand, bent on securing as many victims as possible. When such surprisals occurred, the first movement would be to extinguish the lights; then, through door, window, and even chimney, the affrighted worshippers hurried their escape. Those who were unlucky enough to be caught, were taken to the cage,11 A place provided everywhere in towns at the South, for the temporary confinement of delinquent slaves. and the next day rewarded with nine-and-thirty lashes at the whipping post for having peacefully, but unlawfully, assembled to worship God. Anthony was not without experience of this sort, though he was always so fortunate as to escape from the clutches of the officers.

In his new capacity, it sometimes fell to his lot to perform the marriage rite for slaves, or what among them was called such; and sometimes to conduct the burial service for the dead. If a slave died during the week, no funeral was allowed to interrupt the daily toil of the plantation. The body, encased perchance in an orange-box, was deposited in the ground without ceremony or delay, and a few shovelfulls of earth were thrown in, while the bereaved kindred went about their toil as usual. But on the following Sabbath, the whole body of the slaves, attended by the master or the overseer, assembled to “sod the grave.” With prayers, exhortations, and much singing of hymns, in the sad, wild negro airs, this final ceremony was completed.

In death as in life, the social distinctions of slavery are carefully maintained. Laid to rest in a “potter's field,” the dead bodies of the slaves .never mingle their dust with that of the sovereign race. No monument, inscribed with the name of the deceased, ever marks the spot where he lies, as no legal sanction was ever given to his name while he lived. A rough stone, gathered from the wayside, or a branch of cedar, soon to die, is his only monument. So perish, an undistinguishable throng, the enslaved race of the South. For two centuries the long and ever swelling procession has been moving on in its weary path to the grave, but no name of them all survive, save where, here and there, one has escaped out of the American Egypt, or, Spartacus-like, has risen to take bloody vengeance on his oppressors. A race of many millions has mingled in the very thick of American civilization reaching even into the nineteenth century, and yet their place in human history is a blank.

When Anthony had ended his year of service with Foote, he found a new master in Falmouth. This man, not having employment enough for him, re-let him at the end of six months to a wholesale merchant. The latter proved to be a harsh master, and Anthony refused to remain beyond the expiration of his time, much to the merchant's disappointment. With the new year, he entered the service of a tavern-keeper in Fredericksburg. The annual income which his owner derived from his services had now risen to one hundred dollars, notwithstanding the drawback caused by his lame hand. At the end of the year, true to his secret purpose of frequently changing his place, he sought and obtained a new situation in the establishment of an apothecary in Fredericksburg. While there, an incident occurred that made all his hopes of freedom to bud and blossom afresh. Going into the kitchen of his employer one day, he found there a fortune- teller who at once beset him to cross her palm with his shilling. With some reluctance Anthony consented, and the woman proceeded to flatter him with the usual nonsense about love. But Anthony waited with secret anxiety to hear if she would prophesy to him of freedom; and when at length she did promise him that long dreamed of bliss, he almost fainted with the rush of emotion. Not content with uttering an indefinite prediction, she even fixed the period when he should become a freeman, and fixed it only a few months forward. Was it strange that a slave, panting to breathe the air of liberty, should catch at such a straw? With increasing restlessness he looked forward to the predicted time. When it had passed and he still remained in slavery as before, his faith in fortune-telling was naturally staggered. But a change in his circumstances occurred about this time that contributed to keep alive, and even to strengthen, his hopes.

Col. Suttle had hitherto managed the hiring of his own slaves; he now appointed William Brent his agent for that purpose. The latter having at length discovered that work and not sport is the law of life, had removed from Falmouth to Richmond and entered the service of his brother-in-law as a clerk. He now sent for Anthony for the purpose of hiring him out in the latter city. This was welcome intelligence, for, besides placing him in a community where he was unknown, the change would bring him to the very side of the ships that might help him wing his way to the North. Accordingly, at the close of the year, he set out for the metropolis of Virginia, having under his charge four other slaves belonging to Col. Suttle, also bound for the hiring-ground.

The trust committed to him on this occasion was but one proof of the high place which Anthony held in his owner's esteem. As he had grown up, his superiority, natural and acquired, to the other slaves of Col. Suttle, had become more and more manifest, and in the end he was made a supervisor over the whole. He found them new masters at the end of the year; if anything went amiss with them, it was to him that the owner or his agent looked for an account. Once a year, there was a re-union of Col. Suttle and all his slaves. The scene was a little cabin in Stafford where Anthony's mother, now verging upon fourscore, and his sister, a breeding-woman, had their quarters. To this centre, the hired slaves, under the superintendence of Anthony, were required to repair at the close of the year, however distant they might be. The owner met them, saw for himself their personal condition, and received reports of what had transpired in respect to themselves. If any had been sick, or had fallen into difficulties with their employers, or had been punished by the authorities, this was the time for explanation. The interview ended with a dotation from Col. Suttle of a dime, or some other small coin, to each. Usually, this was the only time in the year when he and his slaves met each other face to face.

On arriving in Richmond, Anthony found that a master had already been provided for himself in the person of Brent's brother-in-law. A day's acquaintance satisfied him that they would never get on harmoniously together, and he refused his assent to the arrangement. In the mean time, he busied himself with providing situations for the slaves that had been placed in his charge. Having accomplished this, he then found a place for himself with the proprietor of a large flouring establishment where an elder brother was already employed. All being thus happily provided for by the enterprise and address of Anthony, nothing remained for the agent Brent but to execute the contracts in writing.

Meanwhile he had continued to make progress in his education. At Acquia, in Culpepper, in Falmouth, and in Fredericksburg, he had found one and another to assist him in the struggle. The spelling-book had been mastered, and the New Testament had begun to yield up its meaning to his patient application. At length he essayed a bolder flight. A part of his business had usually been to fetch his master's letters from the post-office. One day the thought struck him that if he were able to write, he too might send letters to his friends, and no one be the wiser. He resolved, if it were possible, to learn the precious art. He gathered from the street some torn scraps of paper with writing upon them, and carefully imitated the characters. These rude copies he ventured to show to a young lady whom he had known as a child at Miss Horton's school. His confidence was not misplaced; although contrary to Virginia law, she kindly explained their meaning and lent him further aid. Thus, by the time he arrived in Richmond, he was already able to read and to write with a considerable degree of correctness. Such unusual attainments gave him a position in that city which he did not fail to improve to his own advantage, as well as that of others. He set up a school for the instruction of slaves—old as well as young—in reading. When the labors of the day were over, he was wont to meet twelve or fifteen in the house of a free negro woman for that purpose. This practice he continued for several months, and while it directly promoted his mental improvement, it was also a source of pecuniary profit.

At the end of his first year in Richmond, he changed his masters for the last time. His new employer was a druggist named Millspaugh. In about a week after Anthony had entered upon his new engagement, Millspaugh took him aside, and proposed a different arrangement. He had expected, he said, to have had employment enough to keep Anthony constantly busy, but found that such was not the case, and that he was likely to lose money by retaining him. He proposed, therefore, that Anthony should take the matter into his own hands on these conditions: That he should pay to Millspaugh the sum ($125), which Col. Suttle was to receive, that he should clothe himself, and, finally, that he should pay Millspaugh a bonus, the amount of which was left to Anthony's generosity. He was to seek jobs here and there in the city, and every evening pay to his master a certain sum from his earnings. This arrangement, Millspaugh informed him, was in violation of law, and must of course be kept secret; nor, as Anthony understood, was it ever made known to Suttle or to Brent. He joyfully accepted the proposal, and with new springs of life went forth to seek work, which had thus suddenly become his best friend. It soon appeared, however, that the arrangement to pay Millspaugh every night would be inconvenient, and even impossible, since his daily earnings were variable, and on some days he had failed of a job altogether. It was therefore arranged that he should make a payment to his master at the end of every fortnight.

All this while, the great purpose of his life had had been fast ripening for action. He had now dwelt a year in the midst of circumstances that strongly fostered its developement. He was in daily sight of those northern keels that seemed to him a part of the very soil of freedom. He was in daily converse with men whose birthright was in a free land, and whose language to the slave had no smack of the whip. Kindhearted sailors, having no vessels to forfeit, and no trade to compromise, did not hesitate to urge him on to flight. Plainly, the time was at hand, when, if ever, he was to achieve his freedom.

One very serious obstacle lay in his path, and must be overcome. As already narrated, he had become a member of the church, and more than that, a preacher of the gospel. Was it right for him to run away from his owner? The question troubled him. He could not bring reproach upon the sacred cause he had espoused; if he fled from slavery, it must be with a clear conscience. To resolve his doubts, he searched the Scriptures. He fell upon the Epistle to Philemon, which has furnished so much comfort to pious slaveholders, and, strangely enough, it relieved and comforted Anthony also. For he read that though Paul had sent back a runaway slave, it was that he should be no longer a slave, but a brother beloved unto his former master. Still pursuing his investigations, he met with the case of the bond-woman Hagar, whom, when she had fled from hard usage, the angel of the Lord had commanded to return and become submissive to her mistress. This seemed to contradict the principle inculcated by Paul, and in his perplexity Anthony applied to others for light. They summarily expounded the passage as a divine sanction to the slave code of the Old Dominion. Not satisfied—as how could he be with what would wither his now brightly blooming hopes—Anthony searched further, and reflected with deeper earnestness. As the result of his inquiries, he found that the Bible set forth only one God for the black and the white races, that He had made of one blood all the nations of the earth, that there was no divine ordinance requiring one part of the human family to be in bondage to another, and that there was no passage of Holy Writ by virtue of which Col. Suttle could claim a right of property in him, any more than he could in Col. Suttle. These considerations ended his doubts. Paul was on his side, the whole spirit of the Gospel sanctioned his desires, and he deliberately dismissed Hagar from his thoughts. From that moment, with a clear conscience and full integrity of Christian character, he applied himself to the recovery of his inalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The new arrangement for paying Millspaugh was highly favorable to the success of his plans. So long as he was required to reckon every night, there was little chance of making good his escape. His failure to appear would have been remarked by his expectant master, and continued absence would have been followed by speedy search. But now, he was not expected until the end of a fortnight; nor would suspicion be excited if he were not seen during that interval. A fortnight's start in the race for freedom was, under ordinary circumstances, more than enough to place him upon the soil of New England, and it was his. This fair prospect was suddenly obscured. At the end of the first month, Anthony paid to his master twenty-five dollars, showing that he was earning at the rate of three hundred dollars a year. This fact seemed to put a new thought into Millspaugh's head. He revoked his permission for settlements once a fortnight, and not only required them to be made daily, as at first, but also required that the whole sum of one hundred and twenty-five dollars should be paid as fast as possible. Did he design, when that was paid, to ignore the unlawful bargain with his slave, and appropriate his earnings for the remainder of the year? Whatever his secret purpose, it was effectually baulked. Anthony strenuously objected to the arrangement, and finally left Millspaugh's presence without giving his consent. But he saw that the crisis had come, and he proceeded to act accordingly.

On becoming master of his own time, according to the arrangement with Millspaugh, he had sought and obtained employment on the vessels lying at the wharves. Much of the time, he was on board assisting to discharge cargoes of coals, guano, and other lading. He was thus brought into familiar intercourse with the sailors, and with one in particular he was soon on the most confidential terms. The subject of his bondage was broached, and his aspirations for freedom were disclosed. The sympathetic sailor entered heartily into his views, and a plan for his escape had already been concerted, when Millspaugh's change of purpose suddenly precipitated its execution. Although Anthony had refused his assent to the new arrangement, yet he had every reason to fear that it would be enforced notwithstanding his remonstrances. He would thus be required to appear daily in his master's presence. But he imagined that for the first few days his failure to do so would naturally be attributed to his reluctance on this point, and so suspicion would be disarmed. This precious interval he now resolved should witness his departure from slave-land.

At the very last, a sharp struggle awaited him. Love, which does not discriminate between black and white, bond and free, had made a conquest of Anthony. He had formed an attachment to a bond-woman of his own race, and there was before him a bright prospect of soon enjoying the highest solace which slave life affords. To sunder this tender tie was hard, but to forego the prospect of liberty was harder still. Besides, his desire for freedom had by this time assumed a high moral character; as a Christian man, his soul was fettered; as one seeking to benefit his fellow-men, he found himself under restraints too great to be borne. The higher motive triumphed, love was sacrificed on the altar of liberty.

The third night after his last interview with Millspaugh was fixed upon for putting his purpose into execution; it was one of the early days in February, 1854. His lodging-place was in Millspaugh's house, directly over that person's chamber. Gathering some few effects into a small bundle, he encased himself in four suits of clothes—the outer suit being the coarse garb in which he performed his daily toil—and lay down to pass a sleepless night. In the same room, a roguish young negro boy was accustomed to sleep, by whom there was danger that his strange plight would be discovered. Fortunately, no detection took place. An hour before daylight, he rose and took his way about a mile to the wharves. Had he found any persons around, it was his purpose to have gone to work as usual. Finding the coast clear, he rapidly passed on board the vessel to which his sailor-friend belonged, and was quickly stowed away in a place of concealment previously prepared by the latter.

The vessel did not sail that day, as had been expected, and, while she still lay at the wharf, sleep fell upon Anthony, already exhausted by watching. When he again awoke, she was ten or fifteen miles down the river, under full sail. Contrary winds retarded the voyage, and the roughened waters caused the vessel to pitch and toss at an unusual rate. The effect produced upon Anthony's physical system was too much for his endurance. Shut up in a dark hole, where he was compelled to lie constantly in one position, and left for several days without a morsel of food, he had to undergo, in addition, the pangs of sea-sickness, redoubled by the other miseries of his situation, and by their very strangeness. In his extreme misery, he entreated his friend to put him on shore and leave him to his fate; but this was impossible. At the end of two days the vessel reached Norfolk, where she lay to for a short time, and then resumed her voyage for Boston. The ordinary time for the passage was from ten to fourteen days, but for three weeks Anthony was tossed upon the ocean before he again set foot on land. During all that time he never once left his narrow hiding- place, nor was he able to change his position in the least degree. Lying constantly on one side, he for a time entirely lost the use of his right arm. Bread and water were his only nourishment, and these he received only at intervals of three or four days, as his friend found opportunity to convey them to him by stealth. For, from first to last, neither the captain nor any officer was aware of his being on board. As the vessel passed into the more northern latitudes, he was assailed by a degree of cold such as his southern life had ill fitted him to endure, and, before the voyage was ended, his feet were frozen stiff in his boots.

At length, somewhere in the last days of February or first of March, the vessel touched her wharf at Boston. Seizing a favorable opportunity, Anthony succeeded in getting on shore unobserved. It was in the gray of the morning, and few people were moving. Assuming the air of a seaman, he inquired his way to a boarding-house, and was soon provided for. A week elapsed before he was sufficiently recovered of his bruises to move about with any comfort. He then sought for employment, and at length secured the situation of a cook on board a mud-scow. In the discharge of his new duties everything succeeded satisfactorily but one—he was unable to make his bread rise. This was a fatal defect, and at the end of a week he was discharged. His next permanent employment was that in which he was found by the slave-hunter.11 The discovery of his place of refuge was made by means of a letter which he wrote to his brother in Richmond, and which he had incautiously dated at Boston, while taking care to have it postmarked in Canada. It of course first fell into the hands of his brother's master, who communicated the contents to Brent or Suttle. I now resume the narrative of his extradition.

Once, when Col. Suttle was sitting upon deck, he approached and said:

“Master Charles, what are you going to do with me?”

“What do you think I ought to do, ‘Tony?”

“I expect you will sell me.”

Col. Suttle replied that Anthony had caused him great expense, that his lawyers' fees alone had been four hundred dollars; but he left unanswered the slave's anxious inquiry.

On arriving at a point off New York Bay, the cutter fell in with a steamer bound for that city. By this time, Suttle and Brent had become thoroughly seasick, and they improved the opportunity to leave the cutter, intending to make the remainder of their journey overland. After their departure, the situation of Anthony became less agreeable. He had hitherto enjoyed the freedom of the vessel; now he was restricted to a certain part of it. He was required to take his meals by himself. No one looked kindly upon him but the sailors that manned the vessel. The departure of Col. Suttle was also the signal for Butman and his coadjutors to beset Anthony afresh. They importuned him to tell them the whole matter, now that it was ended; and they were especially curious to ascertain if the witnesses in behalf of Burns had told the truth. Again they renewed their protestations of friendship; in proof of it, they reminded Anthony that it was they who had procured for him new clothes and supplied him with money. They at length proceeded to tempt him with a proposition in full keeping with the infamy of their own course. They assured him that they would procure his immediate freedom, provided he would return and assist them in catching fugitive slaves. To strengthen the lure, they informed him that one negro in Boston had engaged in the business, and grown rich by so doing. But Burns understood his men, and was fully proof against their machinations.

“You wish,” said he, “to get out of me all that you can, for the purpose of injuring my friends in Massachusetts, and then you will leave me to die in Virginia. I know I am green; but, mark me, I am ripe enough for you in this matter.”

On Saturday, after a voyage of eight days, the vessel arrived at Norfolk. Informed by telegraph of Burns's departure from Boston, the Virginia city was already awaiting his appearance. Although Richmond was the destination of the fugitive, yet Norfolk was determined to share in the triumph of her sister city. On two former occasions she had been baulked in her attempts to recover fugitives from Massachusetts on her own account, and the failure had only increased her eagerness.11 Latimer, whom Gov. Davis declined to surrender to the Governor of Virginia in 1843, when requisition was made on the false pretence that he was a fugitive from justice, and Shadrach, who was the first fugitive slave arrested in Massachusetts after the passage of the Act of 1850, and who made good his escape from the officer,—were both Norfolk slaves. Accordingly, as the vessel drew to land, the officers of the city went on board and taking possession of Anthony, carried him off to the jail. A crowd followed them through the streets, anxious to catch a glimpse of the “Boston Lion,” as their excited imaginations led them to style him. He was thrown into the common jail, where he was kept in solitude for two days, without bed or seat, and with only a single meal during the whole period. It was the first greeting which slave-land gave to its recovered slave— starvation in prison. On Monday, the voyage was resumed, and the same day Burns was landed on the wharf at the capital of Virginia.

It was expected that Brent would meet the party on their arrival in Richmond, but he failed to make his appearance. They therefore took a carriage and were driven immediately to the principal hotel of the city. There the deputy marshal and his aids took lodgings, but Burns was delivered into the custody of an officer, by whom he was forthwith lodged in the common jail for safe keeping.

The Federal Government had at length performed the task which it had undertaken. A vast amount of money had been expended; time, human life, the national reputation, and the law of nature had been sacrificed in order to restore a single slave to his master: but it was thought that the political well-being of the nation required it all. The result demonstrated that the fugitive slave act was the most costly, as it was the most infamous, upon the statute-book; and it produced the certain conviction that the next attempt to execute it in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would prove more costly still.

In the jail, Anthony remained uncared for during ten days. He was indulged with the freedom of the jail-yard and no task was assigned him. A moderate allowance of coarse food, twice a day, was all that he had to satisfy his hunger. On being incarcerated, his person was searched and his knife and some money were taken from him. These were never restored, southern jailers not disdaining to rob even slaves of their small possessions. At the end of ten days, Brent presented himself at the jail. He was in no gracious mood. Incidentally, he had been informed that Anthony had denied to some persons having any acquaintance with him. To be ignored by a slave under his own charge was too much for the equanimity of Mr. Brent, and, on first meeting Anthony, he compromised his dignity by betraying the cause of his spleen. The ruffled feathers were smoothed by a quiet denial of the absurd accusation on the part of Burns.

Brent was accompanied to the jail by one Robert Lumpkin, a noted trader in slaves. This man belonged to a class of persons by whose society the slaveholders of the South profess to feel disgraced, but with whose services, nevertheless, they cannot dispense. He had formerly been engaged exclusively in the traffic in slaves. Roaming over the country, and picking up a husband here, a wife there, a mother in one place, and an alluring maiden in another, he banded them with iron links into a coffle and sent them to the far southern market. By his ability and success in this remorseless business, he had greatly distinguished himself, and had come to be known as a “bully trader.” At this time, however, he had abandoned the business of an itinerant trader, and was established in Richmond as the proprietor of a Trader's Jail. In this he kept and furnished with board such slaves as were brought into the city for sale, and, generally, all such as their owners wished to punish or to provide with temporary safe keeping. He also kept a boarding-house for the owners themselves. Lumpkin's Jail was one of the prominent and characteristic features of the capital of Virginia. It was a large brick structure, three stories in height, situated in the outskirts of Richmond, and surrounded by an acre of ground. The whole was enclosed by a high, close fence, the top of which was thickly set with iron spikes.

To the proprietor of this prison, Burns was now delivered up by Brent. He was ordered by Lumpkin to put his hands behind him; this done, the jail-keeper proceeded to fasten them together in that position with a pair of iron handcuffs. Then, directing Anthony to move on before, he followed him closely behind until they arrived at his jail.

Here he was destined to suffer, for four months, such revolting treatment as the vilest felons never undergo, and such as only revengeful slaveholders can inflict. The place of his confinement was a room only six or eight feet square, in the upper story of the jail, which was accessible only through a trap-door. He was allowed neither bed nor air; a rude bench fastened against the wall and a single, coarse blanket were the only means of repose. After entering his cell, the handcuffs were not removed, but, in addition, fetters were placed upon his feet. In this manacled condition he was kept during the greater part of his confinement. The torture which he suffered, in consequence, was excruciating. The gripe of the irons impeded the circulation of his blood, made hot and rapid by the stifling atmosphere, and caused his feet to swell enormously. The flesh was worn from his wrists, and when the wounds had healed, there remained broad scars as perpetual witnesses against his owner. The fetters also prevented him from removing his clothing by day or night, and no one came to help him; the indecency resulting from such a condition is too revolting for description, or even thought. His room became more foul and noisome than the hovel of a brute; loathsome creeping things multiplied and rioted in the filth. His food consisted of a piece of coarse corn-bread and the parings of bacon or putrid meat. This fare, supplied to him once a day, he was compelled to devour without Plate, knife, or fork. Immured, as he was, in a narrow, unventilated room, beneath the heated roof of the jail, a constant supply of fresh water would have been a heavenly boon; but the only means of quenching his thirst was the nauseating contents of a pail that was replenished only once or twice a week. Living under such an accumulation of atrocities, he at length fell seriously ill. This brought about some mitigation of his treatment; his fetters were removed for a time, and he was supplied with broth, which, compared with his previous food, was luxury itself.

When first confined in the jail, he became an object of curiosity to all who had heard of his case, and twenty or thirty persons in a day would call to gaze upon him. On these occasions, his fetters were taken off and he was conducted down to the piazza in front of the jail. His visitors improved the opportunity to express their opinion of his deserts; having no pecuniary interest in his life, they were anxious that it should be sacrificed for the general good of slaveholders. When curiosity was satisfied, he would be led back to his cell, and again placed in irons. These exhibitions occurred ordinarily once a day during the first two or three weeks, and, though humiliating, furnished a relief to the solitude of his confinement. There were other slaves in the jail, who were allowed more or less intercourse with each other; but between them and Burns all communication was strictly prohibited. The taint of freedom was upon him, and infection was dreaded.

His residence in the jail gave him an opportunity of gaining new views of the system of slavery. One day his attention was attracted by a noise in the room beneath him. There was a sound as of a woman entreating and sobbing, and of a man addressing to her commands mingled with oaths. Looking down through a crevice in the floor, Burns beheld a slave woman stark naked in the presence of two men. One of them was an overseer, and the other a person who had come to purchase a slave. The overseer had compelled the woman to disrobe in order that the purchaser might see for himself whether she was well formed and sound in body. Burns was horror-stricken; all his previous experience had not made him aware of such an outrage. This, however, was not an exceptional case; he found it was the ordinary custom in Lumpkin's jail thus to expose the naked person of the slave, both male and female, to the inspection of the purchaser. A wider range of observation would have enabled him to see that it was the universal custom in the slave states.

In spite of the interdict under which he was laid, Burns found a method of communicating with other slaves in the jail. It has been stated that during his illness he was released from his fetters and supplied with broth. The spoon given him to eat with, on that occasion, he contrived to secrete, and when alone, he used it in enlarging a small hole in the floor. It was just behind the trap-door, by which, when thrown open, it was entirely hidden from view, and thus escaped discovery. Through this hole Burns made known his situation to some slaves in a room below, and at once enlisted their sympathies. The intercourse thus established was afterward regularly maintained. To avoid detection, it was carried on only at dead of night; then, throwing himself prostrate upon the floor and applying his mouth to the aperture, Burns whiled away hour after hour in converse with his more fortunate fellow bondmen. He filled their eager and wondering ears with the story of his escape from bondage, his free and happy life at the North, his capture, and the mighty effort that it cost the Government to restore him to Virginia. He was their Columbus, telling them of the land, to them unknown, which he had visited; inspiring them with longings to follow in his track; and warning them, out of his own experience, of the perils to be avoided. On their part, they communicated to him such information as their less restricted condition had enabled them to obtain. Conversation was not the only advantage that he derived from this quarter. His new friends furnished him with tobacco and matches, so that, during the long night watches, he was able to solace himself by smoking.

After a while, he found a friend in the family of Lumpkin. The wife of this man was a “yellow woman” whom he had married as much from necessity as from choice, the white women of the South refusing to connect themselves with professed slave traders. This woman manifested her compassion for Burns by giving him a testament and a hymn-book. Upon most slaves these gifts would have been thrown away; fortunately for Burns, he had learned to read, and the books proved a very treasure. Besides the yellow wife, Lumpkin had a black concubine, and she also manifested a friendly spirit toward the prisoner. The house of Lumpkin was separated from the jail only by the yard, and from one of the upper windows the girl contrived to hold conversations with Anthony, whose apartment was directly opposite. Her compassion, it is not unlikely, changed into a warmer feeling; she was discovered one day by her lord and master; what he overheard roused his jealousy, and he took effectual means to break off the intercourse.

In the search of Anthony's person at the common jail, some things had escaped discovery. He had concealed between the parts of his clothing a little money, some writing paper, and a pen, and these he still retained. Ink only was wanting, and this, through the aid of his prison friends, he also secured. Thus furnished, he wrote several letters to his friends at a distance; in all there were six, two of which were addressed to persons in Boston. To secure their transmission to the post-office, he adopted the following method: The letter was fastened to a piece of brick dug from the wall; then watching at his window until he saw some negro passing outside the jail fence, he contrived by signs to attract his attention and throw to him the letter. The passer-by was in all probability an entire stranger, as well as a person unable to read, yet Burns trusted, not unreasonably, that his wishes would be rightly interpreted, and that his letters would reach the post-office. No answers were expected in return, none would have reached him had they been written. The postmaster at the South, albeit an officer of the Federal Government, is not the less an obsequious servant of the slaveholder. If a letter addressed to a slave bears a southern post-mark, it is delivered to its claimant without question; but when the post-mark indicates a northern origin, the postmaster withholds it from the claimant, inquires his master's name, and then deposits it in the latter's box. If the letter is found to be objectionable, it is destroyed and nothing is said about it; if otherwise, the master reads to his slave such portions as he sees fit. One of the letters written by Burns was addressed to Col. Suttle, giving an account of his illness. Suttle immediately wrote to Brent upon the subject, and the confounded agent hastened to the jail for an explanation. Burns frankly told him of the manner in which he had despatched his letters to the post-office, and enjoyed not a little his visitor's astonishment at the revelation. The consequence was that Brent deprived him of his pen in the vain hope of putting an end to his letter- writing.

After lying in the jail four months, his imprisonment came to an end. It had been determined to sell him, and the occurrence of a fair in Richmond presented a favorable opportunity. Accordingly, his manacles were knocked off, his person was put in decent trim, and he was led forth to the auction room. A large crowd of persons was already assembled.

Finding the business on his hands, Mr. Grimes proceeded to prompt and energetic action. His first care was to have Mr. McDaniel informed that his terms were accepted; and an appointment was made to meet him with Anthony in Baltimore on the twenty-seventh of February, and there complete the negotiation. He then laid the subject before the Baptist clergy of Boston at their weekly meeting. Most of them entered warmly into his plan and engaged to take up collections in their several churches. The same course was pursued toward the clergy of other denominations with various degrees of success. From these sources, about three hundred dollars were obtained. Three of the old subscribers redeemed their pledges by the payment of one hundred dollars each; and smaller sums were obtained from other persons of less means. When the day for his departure for Baltimore arrived, Mr. Grimes had succeeded in collecting only six hundred and seventy-six dollars. At the last moment, it seemed likely that the plan would fall through. The whole sum must be taken to Baltimore, and Mr. Grimes had no means of his own to make good the deficiency. The time bad been fixed, McDaniel would be on the spot, and finding no purchaser, would depart in a state of irritation and sell Anthony to go south, as he had already threatened in one of his letters. In this emergency, the friendly cashier of a Boston bank stepped in to Mr. Grimes's relief. He received the amount already collected, accepted the note of Mr. Grimes for the balance, and placed in his hands a cheque on a Baltimore bank for thirteen hundred dollars. Thus furnished, Mr. Grimes took his departure for the Monumental city. it had been agreed that he should be accompanied by Mr. Stockwell, but, through some misunderstanding, the latter failed to appear at the place and time appointed. Mr. Grimes proceeded alone, and at eleven o'clock on the twenty-seventh of February arrived at Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore.

Meanwhile, McDaniel had broken the subject to Anthony. On receiving the first letter from Mr. Stockwell, he asked the slave if he had been writing letters to the North. Anthony evaded the question. McDaniel then informed him of Mr. Stockwell's proposition to purchase him, and inquired if he would like to have his freedom. Burns hesitated to answer, fearing that he should be entrapped. He asked permission to look at the letter, which was readily granted. Finding that McDaniel had truthfully represented the matter, he then frankly avowed his desire to be free and go to the North. Nothing more passed until the letter was received which announced the acceptance of McDaniel's terms and fixed the day of meeting in Baltimore. Soon after, Anthony drove his master to the railroad station for the purpose of taking the train to Richmond.

Roused by the signs of impending danger, Mr. Loring at last himself presented to the Legislature a remonstrance against his removal. This paper was clumsily constructed and its argument was obscurely set forth. Reduced to a logical form it seemed to be this: That Mr. Loring ought not to be removed from the office of Judge of Probate; first, because his action in the case of Burns had been only that of a good citizen and a sworn magistrate both of Massachusetts and of the United States; second, because that action was not incompatible with his duty as a Judge of Probate. The fugitive slave law had found him holding the office of a Commissioner, and had imposed upon him the additional duty of sending back fugitive slaves. That law was an amelioration of the old Jaw of 1793. It had been pronounced by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts to be constitutional; and he had been required by the people of Massachusetts to swear as Judge of Probate to support all constitutional laws. Thus, although he had sent Anthony Burns back into slavery, he had done it humanely, constitutionally, and in obedience to his oath. Nor was the act inconsistent with the faithful discharge of his Probate functions. The office of United States Commissioner had been held by state magistrates, and, therefore, might be held by a Judge of Probate. He had received the appointment of a Probate Judge while holding the office of Commissioner, and no objection had been made from any authoritative quarter against his continuing to discharge all its duties. Nor, when by the act of 1850, the duty of returning fugitives to slavery had been added to his other duties as Commissioner, had he received any notice from the state authorities that the two offices were thereby rendered incompatible. Long custom, and expressive silence twice repeated, thus sanctioned the position that a Judge of Probate might properly act as a United States Commissioner, and, so acting, might without blame send back a fugitive into slavery.

The conclusion of the remonstrance was in no suppliant tone. “I claim as facts,” said the remonstrant, “that the extradition of fugitives from service or labor is within the provisions of the Constitution of the United States; that the U. S. act of 1850 was and is the law of the land; and, by the Supreme Judicial Court of this commonwealth, obligatory on all its magistrates and people; that action under the said act was lawful and not prohibited by any State law to the judicial officers of the State, and was in conformity with the official oath of all officers of the State to support the Constitution of the United States. And I respectfully submit to your honorable bodies, that when your petitioners ask you to punish a judicial officer for an act not prohibited by any statute of Massachusetts, but lawful under those statutes, and imposed by that law of the land which is the law of Massachusetts, they ask of you an abuse of power for which the legislative history of Massachusetts furnishes no precedent.”

The petitions and remonstrances were referred to the Joint Committee on Federal Relations, consisting of two Senators and five Representatives. Before this Committee had taken any action a heavy blow from another quarter fell upon the Commissioner. It has already been stated that his appointment as Lecturer in the Law School of Harvard College awaited the sanction of the Board of Overseers. This body was composed of the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the Secretary of the Board of Education, the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, and thirty other persons elected for a term of years. Its meetings were usually held only during the session of the Legislature. Whatever action had been taken by the Corporation during the legislative recess was then presented for confirmation. At the first meeting this year, held on the twenty-sixth of January, the President of the College laid before the Board Mr. Loring's appointment. The Board took time to deliberate. At the end of three weeks a second meeting was held, when the question again came up. A ballot was taken, and it was found that two thirds had voted against confirming the appointment. Among those who thus put the seal of their condemnation on the Commissioner, were the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the Commonwealth, and two ex-Governors—a whig and a democrat—both of whom had enjoyed in a rare degree the favor of their respective parties.11 Governor Briggs and Governor Boutwell. No debate was held, and no reasons were assigned by the majority for their adverse action. There was no need, for no one doubted that the Board had taken this method to express their disapprobation of Mr. Loring's conduct as Commissioner. By this stroke he was deprived of an honorable office and a salary of fifteen hundred dollars.

Four days after, the Committee held their first meeting to consider the question of his removal from the office of Judge of Probate. The grave character of the proposed step invested their proceedings with unwonted interest. Only thrice since the adoption of the Constitution had a Massachusetts Judge been removed from office by the method of Address; never had one been removed for such a cause. Ample powers had been granted to the Committee. Witnesses were to be examined and arguments to be heard; the proceedings assumed the breadth and importance of a great public trial. To accommodate the people, the committee-room was abandoned, and the sessions were held in the Hall of the Representatives. Long before the appointed hour, the spacious apartment was filled to its utmost capacity; crowds besieged the doors outside, and hundreds more, unable to get within ear-shot, reluctantly went away. This extraordinary exhibition of popular interest was repeated at the second hearing, a week later, and was not diminished when, on the sixth of March, the final hearing was had.

Testimony was taken respecting the Commissioner's conduct, both in and out of the court-room, during the trial of Burns. But the time was chiefly consumed by arguments from various persons in favor of the removal. Among these, the most distinguished were Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, and the historian, Richard Hildreth. They spoke for the twelve thousand petitioners, and for the vast multitude beside, whom those petitioners represented. Much of what was in the public mind, much of what had appeared in the public journals, was now brought to bear upon the Committee with all the force which rare eloquence and keen dialectic skill could exert.

The reasons urged in favor of the removal were various, but they were all reducible into two classes; those which had respect to the character and conduct of Mr. Loring, and those which had respect to the character and conduct of Massachusetts. The Commissioner, it was said, had not conducted the examination of Burns fairly and uprightly. He had pushed it on with indecent haste. He had manifested a purpose to send back the prisoner without giving him a chance for defence. A stickler for law, he yet had wrested the law to the prejudice of the prisoner's rights. He had received the admissions of the prisoner so far as they told against him, and excluded them so far as they told in his favor. He had suffered the worst part of the community to be admitted into his court-room, and the better part to be debarred therefrom. He had refused to secure for the prisoner's counsel free access to his court. He had prejudged the prisoner's cause. Before the examination was fairly begun, he had on two different occasions more than hinted that Burns would have to be sent back to Virginia.11 See letters of Charles Grafton and Edward Avery to the Committee on Federal Relations, printed in House Document, No. 93. He had also, in effect, prejudged the cause by preparing a bill of sale of the prisoner. All these things were so many disclosures of character; they showed Mr. Loring's unfitness for the office of a Massachusetts Judge. He ought, therefore, to be removed.

But there was another view. Some, not stopping to inquire whether as Commissioner he had acted well or ill, held it to be the head and front of his offence that he had acted at all. He should not have sat in judgment on the case. He should not have issued his warrant. He should have resigned his place as Commissioner if he could not otherwise have honorably retained it. Whatever might be his private views, as Judge of Probate he was bound to keep himself free from the contamination of slave-catching. Moreover, he had violated the spirit of the Constitution, and especially of the Bill of Rights. By that charter, Massachusetts magistrates were required to “observe justice, piety, and moderation;” to countenance the principles of humanity and benevolence. But slave-catching was opposed to all these. Nor was that all; he had violated an express statute of the Commonwealth. By the law of 1843, all Massachusetts officers and. magistrates were forbidden to assist in the business of returning fugitive slaves, and the terms of this law were held to include Judges of Probate. Finally, whatever view might be taken of the past, Mr. Loring had manifested a purpose to continue in the business of a slave-catching Commissioner; he had even insisted that it was a solemn duty which he could not evade. If, therefore, he were longer suffered to retain his judicial office, Massachusetts would proclaim to the world that her Judges of Probate might properly, and without offence, act a chief part in sending back into perpetual slavery persons as much entitled to compassion as widows and orphans.

These reasons were of a punitive character; they had respect mainly to Mr. Loring. But the removal was placed upon higher and broader ground. It was necessary to vindicate the character and to enforce the behest of the Commonwealth. From the earliest days, Massachusetts had taken up a position on the subject of slavery in advance of every other nation in Christendom. During the period of her colonial independence, she had adopted the Mosaic code for her guide, and, while not daring to prohibit what God had permitted, had yet reduced slavery to its minimum of evil.11 A small volume has recently been presented to the Massachusetts Historical Society, entitled, “Abstract of the Lawes of New England as they are now Established,” and printed in London in 1641. By the code there given, manstealing was punished with death. In the same year the following statute was enacted: “It is ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, That there shall never be any bond slavery, villenege, or captivity amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just warrs, as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us, and such shall have the liberties and Christian usage which the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons, doth morally require, provided this exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authority.” [i. e. as a punishment for crime.] I have traced this statute in the edition of the Laws of 1660, and in that of 1672. There is no doubt that it continued in force till the abrogation of the Charter in 1684. Among the “liberties and Christian usage” secured by other enactments, were these: A servant flying from the tyranny and cruelty of his master to the house of a freeman, was to be protected and sustained there till due order was taken for his relief. No servant was to be put off to another person for above a year, neither in the lifetime of his master nor after his death, by an executor, except by the authority of Court, or of two Assistants. [An “Assistant” in those days exercised the functions both of a Senator and of a member of the Governor's Council.] A servant whose tooth was smitten out by his master, was to go free from service and have such further recompense as the Court should adjudge. (Mass. Laws, 1660.) There was also this important statute in which the bondman is placed on an equality with the freeman: “Every man, whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free, shall have libertie to come into any publique court, councel, or towne meeting, and either by speech or writing to move any lawful, seasonable, or material question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint, petition, bill, or information, whereof that meeting hath proper cognizance, so it be done in proper time, due order, and respective manner.”During the subsequent period of her provincial vassalage under royal governors, the power of the Crown was interposed to arrest her tendencies toward the entire abolition of the system, and she was compelled to endure what she was unable to remedy.11 There is abundant evidence that the people of Massachusetts were, during the provincial period, opposed to slavery, and would fain have got rid of it, but were prevented by their governors. In 1701, only nine years after the colony was transformed into a royal province, the representatives of Boston were requested by that town to take measures to put a stop to negro slavery. The preamble of an act passed in 1703, declares that “great charge and inconveniences have arisen to divers towns and places by the releasing and setting at liberty mulatto and negro slaves.” In 1705, heavy duties were imposed by the General Court on imported slaves, with a view to discourage the business. In 1712, was passed “an act to prohibit the importation or bringing into this Province [Massachusetts] any Indian servants or slaves;” and one of the reasons assigned for the measure is, that such importation “is a discouragement to the importation of white Christian servants.” About the year 1716, Samuel Sewall, Chief Justice of the Province, published a pamphlet in condemnation of slavery. In 1767, an attempt was made to pass a law “to prevent the unnatural and unwarrantable custom of enslaving mankind and the importation of slaves into the province.” In 1769 one James, a negro, brought a suit in the county of Suffolk, against one Lechmere, to recover his freedom, and was successful. Other suits were brought in other counties, and they were uniformly decided in favor of the slaves. The ground of these decisions was said to be, that all persons in the Province were by the charter as free as the king's subjects in England, and there slavery was not recognized by law. In 1774, a bill to prevent the importation of slaves passed the two Houses, but Gov. Hutchinson refused to sign it because his instructions from the king forbade. Gov. Gage refused his signature to a similar bill for the same reason. In 1777, during the revolutionary war, a prize ship with a cargo of slaves was brought into Salem, and the slaves were advertised to be sold; but the Legislature then sitting in that town interposed, prevented the sale, and ordered the slaves to be set at liberty. For most of these facts, see a learned and instructive article on slavery, in the 41st volume of the North American Review, from the pen of the Hon. Emory Washburn, late Governor of the Commonwealth. But from the hour when she recovered her ancient independence, slavery was forever banished from her domain.1

1 Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts by virtue of the clause in her Constitution which declares that “all men are born free and equal.” The great honor of having made that clause a part of the Constitution belongs to JOHN LOWELL. This distinguished man was born at Newburyport in 1743, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1760. He commenced the practice of the law in his native town, but in 1776 removed to Boston. He soon after became a representative in the General Court, and also a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution of the State. In 1781 he was chosen a member of the Continental Congress. In 1782 he was appointed Judge of the Admiralty Court of Appeals. On the establishment of the Federal Government in 1789, he was appointed by Washington, District Judge of the United States for Massachusetts. This office he held till 1801, when, upon a reorganization of the courts, he was made Chief Justice of the new Circuit Court for the eastern district. His death took place in 1802. “He was,” says Cushing in his history of Newburyport, “eminent for his judgment, integrity, and eloquence as an advocate and legislator; for his impartiality, acuteness, and decision as a judge; and for his zeal in the cause of scientific and other useful institutions.

“Mr. Lowell was the bosom friend of the elder Adams, with whom he was associated on the sub-committee for drafting the plan of the Constitution. Respecting his agency in procuring the adoption of the clause which abolished slavery in Massachusetts, I am happy in being able to present the testimony of his son, now venerable for years and virtues, the Rev. Charles Lowell, D. D., of Cambridge. In a recent note addressed to me, he says: “My father introduced into the Bill of Rights the clause by which slavery was abolished in Massachusetts. You will find, by referring to the Proceedings of the Convention for framing the Constitution of our State, and to Elliot's N. E. Biographical Dictionary, that he was a member of the Convention and of the Committee for drafting the plan, &c., and that he suggested and urged on the Committee the introduction of the clause, taken from the Declaration of Independence a little varied, Which virtually put an end to slavery here, as our courts decided, as the one from which it war, taken ought to have put an end to slavery in the United States. This he repeatedly and fully stated to his family and friends. . . . . . In regard to the clause in the Bill of Rights, my father advocated its adoption in the Convention, and, when it was adopted, exclaimed: ‘Now there is no longer slavery in Massachusetts; it is abolished, and I will render my services as a lawyer gratis to any slave sueing for his freedom, if it is withheld from him,’ or words to that effect.” Mr. Lowell's view of the effect which the clause would have, was speedily confirmed by a decision of the Supreme Court. See Appendix L.