aft. They were slaves
in Georgia; their master was said to be a "very pious man," "an
excellent Christian." Ellen had a little baby,--it was sick and ready
to die. But one day her "owner"--for this wife and mother was only a
piece of property--had a dinner party at his house. Ellen must leave
her dying child and wait upon the table. She was not permitted to
catch the last sighing of her only child with her own lips; other and
ruder hands must attend to the mother's sad privilege. But the groans
and moanings of the dying child came to her ear and mingled with the
joy and merriment of the guests whom the mother must wait upon. At
length the moanings all were still--for Death took a North-side view
of the little boy, and the born-slave had gone where the servant is
free from his master and the weary is at rest--for _there_ the wicked
cease from troubling. Ellen and William resolved to flee to the North.
They cherished the plan for years; he was a joiner, and hired himself
of his owner for about two hundred dollars a year. They saved a little
money, and stealthily, piece by piece, they bought a suit of
gentleman's clothes to fit the wife; no two garments were obtained of
the same dealer. Ellen disguised herself as a man, William attending
as her servant, and so they fled off and came to Boston. No doubt
these Hon. Judges think it was a very "immoral" thing. Mr. Curtis
knows no morality here but "legality." Nay, it was a wicked thing--for
Mr. Everett, a most accomplished scholar, and once a Unitarian
minister, makes St. Paul command "SLAVES, obey your masters!" Nay,
Hon. Judge Sprague says it is a "precept" of our "Divine Master!"

Ellen and William lived here in Boston, intelligent, respected, happy.
The first blow of the fugitive slave bill must fall on them. In
October, 1850, one Hughes, a jailer from Macon, Georgia, a public
negro-whipper, who had once beaten Ellen's uncle "almost to death,"
came here with one Knight, his attendant, to kidnap William and Ellen
Craft. They applied to Hon. Mr. Hallett for a writ. Perhaps they had
heard (false) rumors that the Hon. Commissioner was "a little slippery
in his character;" that he was "not overscrupulous in his conduct;"
that he "would do any dirty work for political preferment." Gentlemen,
you know that such rumors will get abroad, and will be whispered of
the best of men. Of course you would never believe them in this case:
but a kidnapper from Georgia might; "distance lends"