g theirs. The malaria of their rum and tobacco was
an offence in my face. I saw their weapons, and laughed as I looked
those drunken rowdies in their coward eye. They touch me!
5. The fifth time I came here at the summons of an officer of this
court,--very politely delivered, let me say it to his credit,--indicted
and arrested for a "misdemeanor." I gave bail and withdrew.
6. The sixth time,--Gentlemen,--it is the present, whereof I shall
erelong have much to say.
* * * * *
At the first visit I found only scholarly and philanthropic gentlemen,
coming out of sympathy with a Polish exile, a defeated soldier of
freedom, from his broken English to learn sound Roman Law. On each of
the other visits I have been in quite different company. I have
invariably met this Honorable Court, its kinsfolk and its most
intimate friends,--some member of the family of the distinguished
Judge, now fitly presiding over this trial.
1. It was Mr. George T. Curtis, the only brother of the honorable
Justice now on the bench,--born of the same mother and father,--who
had the glory of kidnapping Mr. Sims; it was he who seized Shadrach,
and gave such witness against one of the Angels of the Deliverance,
and then came back and enlarged his testimony; it was he who declared
the rescue an act of "treason;" he who hung the court house in chains,
and brought down the pliant neck of the Massachusetts Judges beneath
that symbolic line of linked fetters long drawn out. To what weak
forces will such necks bow when slavery commands!
2. It was the honorable Judge now on the distinguished bench who tried
men for the rescue of Shadrach. How he tried them is well known.
3. It was Edward G. Loring, another of this family so distinguished,
who kidnapped Mr. Burns and held him in irons; he whose broom swept up
together the marshal's guard; he who advised Mr. Burns's counsel to
make no defence,--"put no obstructions in the way of his going back,
as he probably will;" he who, in the darkness of midnight, sought to
sell his victim, before he had examined the evidence which might prove
him a free man; he who delivered him up as a slave, against evidence
as against law.
4. Another of the same family, William W. Greenough, brother-in-law of
Hon. Judge Curtis, was one of the grand-jury which found the
indictment against me, and "the most active of all in that work."
5. When I came here on the 29th of last November, the Hon
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