Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[324] that all they want is one from Boston, to show the discontented ones at home that it can be done; and our merchants groan at the trade they lose by the hatred the South bears us because she has not yet brought Boston under. Our business streets are markedly quiet. But we hope the same spirit is alive as laughed to scorn the mother country shutting up our harbor to¹ starve us into compliance. Webster, too (like your Lord North), the infamous New Hampshire renegade, threatens to line our streets with soldiers.² We've seen none, opposed to us, since the redcoats; the Government, which wishes to succeed to the hatred they earned for their employers, had better send us their successors.

I need not enlarge on this; but the long evening sessions— debates about secret escapes—plans to evade where we can't resist—the door watched that no spy may enter—the whispering consultations of the morning—some putting property out of their hands, planning to incur penalties, and planning also that, in case of conviction, the Government may get nothing from them—the doing, and answering no questions— intimates forbearing to ask the knowledge which it may be dangerous to have—all remind one of those foreign scenes which have hitherto been known to us, transatlantic republicans, only in books. Yet we enjoy ourselves richly, and I doubt whether more laughing is done anywhere than in anti-slavery³ parlors. We meet sometimes in an establishment whose noble owner had a slave in his employ, and kept him amid 100 workmen who resolved to receive the marshal á la Haynau and⁴ the brewers, if he made the arrest; and let it be known that the establishment had constantly on hand hot water and cold, some dirty and some clean. The marshal⁵ offered to make the arrest if the claimant would precede and point out the man. The claimant declined, went to Washington, complained, and it was during the marshal's absence to answer that complaint that⁶ Shadrach was rescued from his deputy.

Buffum was boasting, rather unadvisedly, while he was⁷ giving bail for Lewis Hayden,⁸ that he heard Shadrach pray while