[24] to me that it was indeed a blessed privilege thus to suffer in the cause of Christ. Death did not present one repulsive feature. The promises of God sustained my soul, so that it was not only divested of fear, but ready to sing aloud for joy. Having had my clothes [it was a bran-new suit] rent asunder, one individual kindly lent me a pair of pantaloons— another, a coat1—a third, a stock—a fourth, a cap as a substitute for my lost hat. After a consultation of fifteen or twenty minutes, the Mayor and his advisers came to the singular conclusion, that the building would be endangered by my continuing in it,2 and that the preservation of my life depended upon committing me to jail, ostensibly as a disturber of the peace!!3 A hack was got in readiness at the door4 to receive
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1 One of the last letters ever received by Mr. Garrison, bearing date of March 26, 1879, and signed by H. B. Thompson (presumably a lady), contained these reminiscences of the mob:
I was at the house of Mr. Nathaniel Vinal in Portland Street. Mr. Vinal was a grain merchant doing business on Vinal's wharf at the North End. He had a son, Spencer Vinal, a young man perhaps 25 years old. He, knowing, I suppose, what was to be done, kept about, looking on, but had no sympathy with you or your work. He came home to his father's house in the evening to supper, wearing your coat, from a pocket of which he took a handful of papers and letters, saying, “I have got the whole abolition correspondence, I guess,” and then told us as follows:(see Lib. 5.187).Garrison went into a carpenter's shop in Wilson's Lane. They followed him, dragged him from under the bench, put a rope round his neck, and brought him to the window to hang him out. I had thought it was good sport up to this time, but when I saw him standing there so pale I thought it was going too far, and said to Aaron Cooley, “Let's go to the rescue; and with some more who helped us we got him clear and ran him” into the City Hall. ‘ . . . I exchanged coats [and I think he said hats] with him’
2 Perhaps the fact that the Post-office was in the same building had something to do with this decision. If so, it was only another instance of excluding ‘incendiary matter’ from the mails.
3 The Mayor's account is: ‘Sheriff Parkman, who was present, said that he would commit him as a rioter. The usual law paper was made out, and Garrison agreed to go to jail, on the condition (as I was informed by Parkman) that he should not be subject to any expense’ ( “ Garrison Mob,” p. 23). As to his consent, Mr. Garrison says (Lib. 5.197): ‘It is true, I made no objection, because freedom of choice did not appertain to my situation. But what could have been more rash than the attempt to drive me in a carriage to jail . . .? That it was successful is truly a marvel; for the scene around the carriage was indescribably perilous.’ And, ‘Until I was called to listen to the reading of the warrant before the court on the ensuing day, I had not the slightest intimation or suspicion that I was incarcerated on a criminal charge.’
4 The north door. By a ruse of the Mayor's, a carriage had been brought also to the south door, and the attention of the mob fixed upon it by the formation of double lines of guards from the door to the carriage. See John C. Park's letter in Boston Herald of Jan. 1, 1882, and E. N. Moore's narrative in Boston Sunday Budget of Mar. 18, 1883, and compare with them the late Ellis Ames's singularly mixed account in Vol. 18 of the Mass. Hist. Society's Proceedings, pp. 341, 342.
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