. He
was now about to be made a slave, and was declared to be the property of
another. The father was about to be torn from his helpless children; the
husband in defiance of the Divine command, was to be wrested from the
fond embrace of his sorrowing wife, to spend his days in misery and
toil. And this was to be done before the eyes of those who had a just
regard for human rights, a hearty hatred of oppression. Is it wonderful,
that under such circumstances, there should have been a deep abhorrence
for the perpetrators of this outrage upon humanity, and a general
sympathy for the innocent captive?

But it was decreed that those feelings of honest indignation should be
speedily supplanted by the warm outpouring of public gratitude and joy.
While the feeling of the spectators was in this state of intense
interest and excitement, the judge, stern and inflexible in his
purposes, and the clan of greedy claimants ready to seize upon their
prey, the sheriff produced his writ of certiorari and handed it to the
court. It was instantly returned, and the judge who sat unmoved, by a
scene to which he was not unaccustomed, and conceiving, perhaps, that
his official dignity was impugned, persisted in his determination that
the prisoner should be handed over to the claimant. The prudence and
foresight of Thomas Shipley and his friends had provided, however, for
this anticipated difficulty. Happily for the prisoner, he was yet
embraced under the provision of that constitution, which secured to him
the protection of a habeas corpus, and this threw around him a shield
which his enemies could not penetrate. A writ of habeas corpus, signed
by the chief justice of the State and demanding the body of the
prisoner, before the Supreme Court at its next term, was now produced!

The astonished judge found himself completely foiled. He had exercised
his authority to its utmost limit, in support of the claims of his
slave-holding friends, and had given the influence of his station and
character, to bolster up the "patriarchal institution;" but it was all
in vain. Just as they supposed they had achieved a victory, they were
obliged with fallen crests, to succumb to the dictates of a higher
tribunal, and to see their victim conveyed beyond their reach in the
safe keeping of the sheriff.

In the Third month, (March,) the case was brought up before the Supreme
Court for final adjudication. In the meantime, Thomas Shipley adopted
vigorous measures t