The plot, as disclosed eleven years later to Richard J. Hinton (September, 1858) by Brown's lieutenant, Kagi, contains some additional details of interest. Hinton says: "The mountains of Virginia were named as the place of refuge, and as a country admirably adapted in which to carry on a guerilla warfare. In the course of the conversation, Harper's Ferry was mentioned as a point to be seized—but not held—on account of the arsenal. The white members of the company were to act as officers of different guerilla bands, which, under the general command of John Brown, were to be composed of Canadian refugees, and the Virginian slaves who would join them.... They anticipated, after the first blow had been struck, that, by the aid of the free and Canadian negroes who would join them, they could inspire confidence in the slaves, and induce them to rally. No intention was expressed of gathering a large body of slaves, and removing them to Canada. On the contrary, Kagi clearly stated, in answer to my inquiries, that the design was to make the fight in the mountains of Virginia, extending it to North Carolina and Tennessee, and also to the swamps of South Carolina, if possible. Their purpose was not the expatriation of one or a thousand slaves, but their liberation in the states wherein they were born, and were now held in bondage.... Kagi spoke of having marked out a chain of counties extending continuously through South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. He had traveled over a large portion of the region indicated, and from his own personal knowledge and with the assistance of the Canadian negroes who had escaped from those States, they had arranged a general plan of attack.... They expected to be speedily and constantly reinforced; first, by the arrival of those men who, in Canada, were anxiously looking and praying for the time of deliverance, and then by the slaves themselves.... The constitution adopted at Chatham [in the spring of 1858] was intended as the framework of organization among the emancipationists, to enable the leaders to effect a more complete control of their forces...."[512] A comparison of these two versions of Brown's plan of liberation leads to the conclusion that the abduction of slaves to the North was a measure to which the liberator never attached more importance than as a means of ridding his men of the care of helpless slaves; the brave he would use in organizing an insurrection amid the mountains of the Southern states that should wipe away the curse of slavery from the country.
It will be remembered that the occasion, if not the cause, of John Brown's raid into Missouri was the solicitation of aid by a slave for himself and companions. Such prayers for succor were not infrequently addressed to abolitionists by those in bonds or by their refugee friends. In the anti-slavery host there were many whose principles wavered not under any test applied to them, and whose impulses urged them upon humanitarian missions, however hemmed in by difficulties and dangers. Among those who heard and answered the cry of the slave were the Rev. Charles T. Torrey, Captain Jonathan Walker, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland, Captain Daniel Drayton, Richard Dillingham, William L. Chaplin and Josiah Henson.
The variety of persons represented in this short, incomplete list is interesting: Mr. Torrey was a Congregational clergyman of New England stock, and had been educated at Yale College; Messrs. Walker and Drayton were masters of sailing vessels, and came from the states of Massachusetts and New Jersey respectively; Mrs. Haviland was a Wesleyan Methodist, who founded a school or institute in southeastern Michigan for both white and colored persons; Richard Dillingham was a Quaker school-teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio; William L. Chaplin began his professional life as a lawyer in eastern Massachusetts, but soon became the editor of an anti-slavery newspaper; and Josiah Henson was a fugitive slave, one of the founders of the Dawn Institute in Canada West. With the exception of the last named they were white persons, whose sense of the injustice of slavery caused them to take a stand that shut them out of that conventionally respectable society to which their birth, education and talents would have admitted them.
In 1838 Charles T. Torrey resigned from the pastorate of a Congregational church in Providence, Rhode Island, and relinquished ease and quiet to engage in the anti-slavery struggle then agitating the country. He became a lecturer and a newspaper correspondent, and, early in the forties, the editor of a paper called The Patriot, at Albany, New York. While acting as Washington correspondent for several Northern papers he attended a convention of slave-owners at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1842, and was thrust into jail on the score of being an abolitionist. He was released after several days, having been placed under bonds to keep the peace. While in prison he solemnly reconsecrated himself to the work of freeing the slaves. Within a year from this time a refugee entreated Mr. Torrey to help him bring his wife and children from Virginia. The errand was undertaken, but came to a most mournful end. Arrested and imprisoned, Mr. Torrey with others attempted to break jail; he was betrayed, however, and at length, December 30, 1843, sentenced to the penitentiary for six years. Under the severities of prison life Mr. Torrey's health gave way. His pardon was sought by friends, but mercy was withheld from a man the depth of whose conviction made recantation impossible. In December, 1844, he wrote: "I cannot afford to concede any truth or principle to get out of prison. I am not rich enough." While his trial was pending he wrote his friend, Henry B. Stanton: "If I am a guilty man, I am a very guilty one; for I have aided nearly four hundred slaves to escape to freedom, the greater part of whom would probably, but for my exertions, have died in slavery." Concerning this confession Henry Wilson writes: "This statement was corroborated by the testimony of Jacob Gibbs, a colored man, who was Mr. Torrey's chief assistant in his efforts."[513] On May 9, 1846, Mr. Torrey died in prison. In death as in life, the lesson of the clergyman's career proclaimed but one truth, the injustice of slavery. When the remains of Mr. Torrey were conveyed to Boston for interment in the beautiful cemetery at Mt. Auburn, the use of Park Street Church, at first granted, was later refused to the brother-in-law of the dead minister, although as a worshipper he was entitled to Christian courtesy. Tremont Temple was procured for the funeral services, and was thronged by a multitude eager to do honor to a life of self-sacrifice, and show disapproval of the affront to the dead. A large meeting in Faneuil Hall on the evening of the funeral day paid tribute to the memory of the liberator. The occasion was made memorable by a poem by James Russell Lowell, and addresses by General Fessenden of Maine, Henry B. Stanton and Dr. Walter Channing. Whittier wrote: "His work for the poor and helpless was well and nobly done. In the wild woods of Canada, around many a happy fireside and holy family altar, his name is on the lips of God's poor. He put his soul in their soul's stead; he gave his life for those who had no claim on his love save that of human brotherhood."[514]
In 1844, the year after Mr. Torrey's disastrous attempt to abduct a slave-family, Captain Jonathan Walker was made a victim of the law on account of friendly offices undertaken in behalf of some trusting negroes. Once, while on the coast of Florida, Mr. Walker consented to ferry seven slaves from Pensacola to one of the neighboring Bahama Islands, where they might enjoy the freedom vouchsafed by English law. In the open boat used for the purpose Captain Walker suffered sunstroke, and on this account his craft was overhauled, and the escaping party was taken into custody. After two trials Captain Walker was condemned to punishments that remind one strongly of the barbarous penalties inflicted upon offenders in the reign of Charles the First of England: he was sentenced to stand in the pillory; to be branded on the hand with the letters S. S. (slave-stealer); to pay a fine and serve a term of imprisonment for each slave assisted; to pay the costs of prosecution; and to stand committed until his fines should be paid. His treatment in prison was brutal, but he was not obliged to endure it long, for, by the intervention of friends, his fines were paid, and he was released in the summer of 1848. Subjected to indignities and disgrace in the South, Captain Walker was the recipient of many demonstrations of approval on his return to the North. Whittier blazoned his stigmas into a prophecy of deliverance for the slave. In a poem of welcome the distinguished Quaker wrote:
"Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave,
Its branded palm shall prophesy 'Salvation to the Slave.'
Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel."[515]
These words were set to music by Mr. George W. Clark, and sung by him with thrilling effect at many anti-slavery gatherings throughout New England. Mr. Walker became at once a conspicuous witness against the slave power in the great trial that was then going forward at the bar of public opinion. At Providence, Rhode Island, his return from the Florida prison was heralded, and a large reception was given him, attended by the Hon. Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyr Lovejoy, Milton Clark, the white slave, and Lewis, his brother. It is said that three thousand people crowded the seats, aisles and doorways of the reception hall. In company with Mr. George W. Clark, Captain Walker was drafted into the work of arousing the masses, and the two agitators received a cordial hearing at many New England meetings. Doubtless the recital of the Captain's experiences intensified anti-slavery feeling throughout the Northern states.[516]
About 1847, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland accepted a mission to find the family of one John White, a slave, who had escaped from the South and was serving as a farm-hand in the neighborhood of Mrs. Haviland's school in southeastern Michigan. Mrs. Haviland went to Cincinnati where she consulted with the Vigilance Committee, and thence to Rising Sun, Indiana, to secure the services of several of John White's colored friends. Here a plan was formed for Mrs. Haviland to go into Kentucky to the plantation where the family lived, and, disguised as a berry picker, see the wife, inform her of her husband's whereabouts, and offer to assist in her rescue. Accomplishing this errand and returning across the border into Indiana, Mrs. Haviland awaited the slave-woman's appearance; but her escape had been prevented by the vigilance evoked on account of the operations of counterfeiters in Kentucky. Then John White started South intent on saving his wife and children from slavery, but his efforts also were unsuccessful, and he was thrown into a Kentucky jail. However, he was soon released by Laura Haviland, who purchased him for three hundred and fifty dollars.[517]
In the summer of 1847, Captain Daniel Drayton sailed to Washington with a cargo of oysters, and while his boat was lying at the wharf he was cautiously approached by a negro, who wanted to get passage North for a woman and five children. The negro said the woman was a slave but that she had, under an agreement with her master, more than paid for her liberty, and when she asked for her "free papers" the master only answered by threatening to sell her South.[518] Captain Drayton allowed the woman and her children and a niece to stow themselves on board his vessel, and he soon landed them at Frenchtown, to the great joy of the woman's husband, who was awaiting them there.
It was by the suggestion of these fugitives that Captain Drayton undertook his important expedition with the schooner Pearl in 1848. On the evening of April 18 his boat was made fast at one of the Washington docks ready to receive a company of fugitives. The time seemed auspicious. The establishment of the new French Republic was being celebrated in the city by a grand torchlight procession, and slaves were left for the most part to their own devices. Thus favored, a large number escaped to the small craft of Captain Drayton and were carefully stowed away. The start was made without incident, and the vessel continued quietly on her course to the mouth of the Potomac; there, contrary winds were encountered, and the Pearl was brought to shelter in Cornfield Harbor, one hundred and forty miles from Washington. The disappearance of seventy-six slaves at one time caused great excitement at the Capitol. The method of their departure was revealed by a colored hackman, who had driven two of the fugitives to the wharf. An armed steamer was sent in pursuit, and the Pearl was obliged to surrender. Her arrival under guard at Washington was the occasion for rejoicing to an infuriated mob of several thousand persons. The slaves were committed to jail as runaways; their helpers were with difficulty protected from murderous violence, and were escorted to the city prison. Under instructions from the district attorney twenty-four indictments were found against both Captain Drayton and his mate, Mr. Sayres. When the trial began in July, the list of indictments presented comprised forty-one counts against each of these prisoners. Three persons were prosecuted; and the aggregate amount of their bail was two hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars. After two trials the accused were heavily sentenced, and remanded to jail until their fines should be paid. The sentence passed upon Captain Drayton required the payment of fines and costs together amounting to ten thousand and sixty dollars, and until paid the prisoner must remain in jail indefinitely.[519] His accomplices were treated with equal severity. Such penalties were accounted monstrous by the friends of the convicted, and efforts were constantly made to have the sentences mitigated or revoked. In 1852 Senator Sumner interested himself in behalf of the imprisoned liberators; and President Fillmore was induced to grant them an unconditional pardon.