ich I owed to their
Creator, to them as their _neighbour_, to the principles of our social
and political system, and to myself.

74. The specimen here given of _man-stealing_, forms but a mere speck in
an extensive system of this nefarious profession, which for many years
has been, and continues to be pursued, with increasing vigor and
_pecuniary_ profit, in all the middle states. Even the city of
Philadelphia is not exempt from this moral pestilence.

75. To enumerate all the horrid and aggravating instances of
men-stealing, which are known to have occurred in the state of Delaware,
within the recollection of many of the citizens of that state, would
require a heavy volume. In many cases, whole families of free coloured
people have been attacked in the night, beaten _nearly_ to death with
clubs, gagged and bound, and dragged into distant and hopeless captivity
and slavery, leaving no traces behind, except the blood from their
wounds.

76. During the last winter, since the seizure of the woman and infant,
as related above, the house of a free black family was broken open, and
its defenceless inhabitants treated in the manner just mentioned,
except, that the mother escaped from their merciless grasp, while on
their way to the state of Maryland. The plunderers, of whom there were
nearly half a dozen, conveyed their prey upon horses; and the woman
being placed on one of the horses, behind, improved an opportunity, as
they were passing a house, and sprang off; and not daring to pursue her,
they proceeded on, leaving her youngest child a little farther along by
the side of the road, in expectation, it is supposed, that its cries
would attract the mother, but she prudently waited until morning, and
recovered it again in safety.

77. I consider myself more fully warranted in particularising this fact,
from the circumstances of having been at New-Castle at the time that
the woman was brought with her child, before the grand jury, for
examination; and of having seen several of the persons against whom
bills of indictment were found, on the charge of being engaged in the
perpetration of the outrage; and also that one or two of them were the
same who were accused of assisting in seizing and carrying off the woman
and child whom I discovered at Washington. The ingenuity and stratagems
employed by kidnappers, in effecting their designs, are such as to
prove, that the most consummate cunning is no evidence of wisdom or
moral pur