[152] poor little innocent children. For my own part, I conscientiously believe she has a just claim to her freedom.All this time, the woman stood holding her little girl and boy by the hand. She was deeply dejected, but her manners were as calm and dignified, as if she had been one of the best educated ladies in the land. The children were too young to understand the terrible doom that threatened their mother, but they perceived that their parents were in some great trouble, and the little creatures wept in sympathy. When Friend Hopper described this scene forty years afterward, he used to say, ‘I shall never forget the anguish expressed in her handsome countenance, as she looked down upon her children. I see it as plainly as if it all happened yesterday.’ At the time, it was almost too much for his sympathizing heart to endure. He felt like moving heaven and earth to rescue her. The trial came on in the afternoon, and it happened that the presiding magistrate was accustomed to drink rather freely of wine after dinner. Friend Hopper perceived that his mental faculties were slightly confused, and that the claimant was a heavy, stupid-looking fellow. With these thoughts there suddenly flashed through his brain the plan of eluding an iniquitous law, in order to sustain a higher law of justice and humanity. He asked to have the case adjourned till the
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Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
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