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The plan which Brown proposed was to get together bands of fugitive slaves in Virginia and either colonize them in the mountain fastnesses or guide them to Canada.
In this project Mr. Higginson and his friends were willing to cooperate and to help raise the needed money.
‘I am always ready,’ Higginson wrote to John Brown, ‘to invest money in treason, but at present have none to invest.’
At this juncture a certain Hugh Forbes, who had drilled John Brown and his men in guerrilla warfare, threatened to expose his plans unless unreasonable demands for money could be met. Thereupon, the majority of Brown's Boston advisers advocated postponing the whole affair until the next winter or spring.
This proposed delay made Mr. Higginson very impatient, and he wrote to Brown, May 7, ‘I utterly protest against any postponement.’
He also wrote in the same vein to Theodore Parker, saying,
‘If I had the wherewithal, I would buy out the other stockholders and tell our veteran to go on.’
To Brown again, May 18, he wrote, ‘I, for one am willing to leave the whole matter to you. . . . The sum raised by me was all I can possibly provide, but I have written to the others, strongly urging them not to give up the ship.’
When Mr. Higginson talked this matter over with Brown, meeting him in Boston again about June 1, the latter sympathized
Books for libraries press. Freeport, New York. 1914.
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