ind instinct
on the part of the people, considering how diligently they had been
instructed otherwise by pulpit and press; but so it was.

When the slave was summoned into the judge's room, Friend Hopper
followed; being extremely desirous to have her understand her position
clearly. He found Mr. Morgan and his Southern friend in close and
earnest conversation with her. When he attempted to approach her, he was
unceremoniously shoved aside, with the remark, "Don't push me away!"

"I did not push thee," said Friend Hopper; "and see that thou dost not
push _me_!" He then inquired of the woman if he had rightly understood
that her husband was free. She replied in the affirmative. "Then let me
tell thee," said the kind-hearted old gentleman, "that we will send for
him, and obtain employment for him here, if it is thy choice to
remain."

Again she wept, and repeated, "I do want to be free." But she was
evidently bewildered and distrustful, and did not know how to understand
the opposite professions that were made to her.

On representation of the claimant's friends, Judge Oakley adjourned the
case till the next morning; telling the woman she was at liberty to go
with whom she pleased. The colored people had assembled in considerable
numbers, and were a good deal excited. Experience led them to suppose
that she would either be cajoled into consenting to return to slavery,
or else secretly packed off to New-Orleans, if she were left in Southern
hands. They accordingly made haste to hustle her away. But their
well-intended zeal terrified the poor bewildered creature, and she
escaped from them, and went back to her mistress.

The pro-slavery papers chuckled, as they always do, when some poor
ignorant victim is deceived by false representation, alarmed by an
excitement that she does not comprehend, afraid that strangers are not
telling her the truth, or that they have not the power to protect her;
and in continual terror of future punishment, if she should attempt to
take her freedom, and yet be unable to maintain it. Great is the triumph
of republicans, when, under such trying circumstances, _one_ poor
bewildered wretch goes back to slavery; but of the _hundreds_, who every
month take their freedom, through fire and flood, and all manner of
deadly perils, they are as silent as the grave.

In the spring of 1841, I went to New-York to edit the Anti-Slavery
Standard, and took up my abode with the family of Isaac T. Hopper. The