"BOLTON & DICKINS."
"JAILOR'S NOTICE.—Was committed to the jail of Shelby County, on 25th January, a Negro Boy named Silas. He says he belongs to William Wise, of Fayette, County Tenne. He is about 30 years old, black complexion, about 5 feet 11 inches high; weighs about 165 lbs. The owner of said Negro is requested to come and prove property, and pay charges, or he will be dealt with according to law.
"E. W. HARREL,
"Jailor."
"Feb. 13.—3tW."
In connection with Memphis, M. de Tocqueville narrates the following touching incident, relative to the expatriation of the Indians, to which I have already referred. "At the end of the year 1831, while I was on the left bank of the Mississippi, at a place named by Europeans Memphis, there arrived a numerous band of Choctaws. These savages [so his American translator renders it] had left their country, and were endeavouring to gain the right bank of the Mississippi, where they hoped to find an asylum which had been promised them by the American Government. It was the middle of winter, and the cold was unusually severe: the snow had frozen hard upon the ground, and the river was drifting huge masses of ice. The Indians had their families with them; and they brought in their train the wounded and the sick, with children newly born, and old men upon the verge of death. They possessed neither tents nor waggons, but only their arms and some provisions. I saw them embark to pass the mighty river, and never will that solemn spectacle fade from my remembrance! No cry, no sob was heard among the assembled crowd: all were silent. Their calamities were of ancient date, and they knew them to be irremediable. The Indians had all stepped into the bark that was to carry them across, but their dogs remained upon the bank. As soon as these animals perceived that their masters were finally leaving the shore, they set up a dismal howl, and, plunging all together into the icy waters of the Mississippi, they swam after the boat." So much for Memphis and its associations!
February 18th, at 5 A.M., we entered the Ohio River, and at 1 P.M. the mouth of the Tennessee; coming shortly afterwards to Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland River, which runs parallel with the Tennessee, and communicates directly with Nashville, the capital of that State. This city also has its association of ideas. I cannot think of it without at the same time thinking of Amos Dresser. He was a student at Lane Seminary (Dr. Beecher's), and subsequently a missionary to Jamaica. In the vacation of 1835 he undertook to sell Bibles in the State of Tennessee, with a view to raise the means of continuing his studies for the ministry. Under suspicion of being an Abolitionist, he was arrested by the "Vigilance Committee" (a Lynch-law institution), while attending a religious meeting in the neighbourhood of Nashville. After an afternoon and evening's inquisition, he was condemned to receive twenty lashes with the cow-hide on his naked body. Between 11 and 12 on Saturday night the sentence was executed upon him, in the presence of most of the committee, and of an infuriated and blaspheming mob. The Vigilance Committee consisted of sixty persons. Of these, twenty-seven were members of churches: one was a religious teacher, and others were elders of the Presbyterian Church,—one of whom had a few days before offered Mr. Dresser the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper. But let Amos Dresser himself describe the scene and the circumstances.
"I knelt down," says he, "to receive the punishment, which was inflicted by Mr. Braughton, the city officer, with a HEAVY COW-SKIN. When the infliction ceased, an involuntary thanksgiving to God, for the fortitude with which I had been enabled to endure it, arose in my soul, to which I began aloud to give utterance. The death-like silence that prevailed for a moment was suddenly broken with loud exclamations, —'G—d d—n him! Stop his praying!' I was raised to my feet by Mr. Braughton, and conducted by him to my lodgings, where it was thought safe for me to remain but a few moments.
"Among my triers was a great portion of the respectability of Nashville; nearly half of the whole number professors of Christianity, the reputed stay of the Church, supporters of the cause of benevolence in the form of tract and missionary societies and Sabbath-schools; several members and most of the elders of the Presbyterian Church, from whose hands but a few days before I had received the emblems of the broken body and shed blood of our blessed Saviour!"
In relating this shameful circumstance, the editor of the Georgia Chronicle, a professor of religion, said that Dresser "should have been hung up as high as Haman, to rot upon the gibbet until the wind whistled through his bones. The cry of the whole South should be death, instant death, to the Abolitionist, wherever he is caught." What a great and free country!