[384]
and gave up the idea of tearing down a church because a hunted man had found shelter with the women there; and we parted in peace.1
The contemporary record of
Neal's exploits (in which his potential control of the mob naturally does not appear) reads as follows:
In the course of his remarks, he gave a correct portrait of2 Garrison, whom he designated as a man who had gone through this country as far as he had dared, to promulgate his doctrines, and had also crossed the Atlantic with the same object.
He stated that Garrison and his associates were willing to trample the Constitution under foot, by the influence of anti-slavery societies; and the object of the present call was to appoint an Auxiliary Society to that already established in the Eastern States by himself and a few deluded followers.
An eye-witness of the mob describes it as ‘a genuine,
3 drunken, infuriated mob of blackguards of every species, some with good clothes, and the major part the very sweepings of the city.’
‘The shouting, screaming, and cursing for
Tappan and
Garrison defy all belief.’
A merchant in respectable circumstances said: ‘If I had my will, or if I could catch him,
Garrison should be packed up in a box with air-holes, marked “this side up,” and so shipped to
Georgia.’
4 The
Commercial Advertiser5 confirmed this report: ‘In regard to
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, the misguided young gentleman who has just returned from
England, whither he has recently been for ’