ostile and malignant as to refuse my
friendly salutation when offered as usual; and on the jury is "most
active of all in his efforts to procure an indictment," so that "but
for his efforts," as one of the Grand-Jury informed me, "no bill would
have been found that time;" and "it was obvious that an outside
influence affected him." Out of court Mr. Hallett, it is said,
jocosely offers to bet ten dollars that he "will get Mr. Parker
indicted." I am to be tried before two judges deeply committed to the
Slave Power, now fiercely invading our once free soil; they owe their
appointment to their hostility against Freedom. Twenty years ago, in
the Old Cradle of Liberty, Mr. Sprague could find for Washington no
epithet so endearing as "THAT SLAVEHOLDER;" he defended Slavery with
all his legal learning, all his personal might. Yes, when other
weapons failed him he extemporized a new gospel, and into the mouth of
Jesus of Nazareth,--who said, "Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as
thyself," and pointed out the man who had "fallen among thieves" as
neighbor to the Samaritan--he put this most unchristian precept,
"SLAVES, OBEY YOUR MASTERS!" Nay, only four years ago, in this very
Court, he charged the jury that if they thought there was a
contradiction between the Law of God and the Statutes of men they must
"obey both."

Gentlemen, the other judge, Mr. Curtis, began his career by asking the
Supreme Court of Massachusetts to restore Slavery to Lexington and
Bunker Hill; he demanded that our own Supreme Court should grant all
that wickedness which Toombs and Hangman Foote, and Atchison and
Stringfellow, and Grier and Kane have since sought to perpetuate! He
denied the existence of any Law of God to control the Court, there is
nothing but the Statutes of men; and declared "Slavery is not
immoral;" Massachusetts may interfere actively to establish it abroad
as well as at home. In Faneuil Hall, in a meeting which he and his
kinsmen had gathered and controlled, a meeting to determine upon
kidnapping the citizens of Boston, he charged me with perjury, asked a
question, and did not dare listen to my reply! Gentlemen, it is a very
proper Court to try me. A fugitive slave bill Court--with a fugitive
slave bill Attorney, a fugitive slave bill Grand-Jury, two fugitive
slave bill Judges--which scoffs at the natural law of the Infinite
God, is a very suitable tribunal to try a Minister of the Christian
religion for defending his own parishioners fro