This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[147]
possible, it was decided that four of the persons in custody were proved to be slaves, and the other seven were discharged.
This decision greatly exasperated the Southerners, and they vented their anger in very violent expressions.
The constables employed were unprincipled men, ready for any low business, provided it were profitable.
The man-hunters had engaged to give them fifty dollars for each slave they were enabled to take back to Virginia; but they were to receive nothing for those who were discharged.
Hence, their extreme anxiety to avoid
Friend Hopper's interference.
When they found that more than half of their destined prey had slipped through their fingers, they were furious.
One of them especially raved like a madman.
He had written the anonymous letter, and was truly ‘a lewd fellow of the baser sort.’
Friend Hopper's feelings were too much interested for those who had been decreed slaves, to think anything of the abuse bestowed on himself.
All of them, three men and one woman, were married to free persons; and it was heart-breaking to hear their lamentations at the prospect of being separated forever.
There was a general manifestation of sympathy, and even the slaveholders were moved to compassion.
Friend Hopper opened a negotiation with them in behalf of the Abolition Society, and they finally consented to manumit them all for seven hundred
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.