the penitentiary, will feel that they are martyrs, and that their crown will shine brighter and their song rise higher on account of what they suffer. I despise an Abolitionist, and their conduct too; but I plead that there is no law to hit the case, and, therefore, they should not be punished. Our only way is to send men to Jefferson who shall make provision for the future. Let justice take its course." His advice was so far followed that in 1845, four years later, such a law was enacted. His appeals, however, were in vain, and after a charge from the judge declaring them guilty, the jury returned a verdict of Guilty, and twelve years in the penitentiary."

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The three were at once removed to prison, where, like other prisoners, they were compelled to undergo a confinement, always and everywhere rough and rigorous enough, but in that semi-barbarous and slave-ridden region and society, unrelieved by the considerate arrangements which prison discipline requires, and the advanced civilization of the Northern and Eastern States has introduced, still more repulsive and harsh. And this was aggravated at first by the drunken frenzies of an intemperate jailer, who often made them suffer from the insane promptings of a harsh and brutal temper crazed with rum. They were, however, Christian men, who had strong faith and an unwavering trust in God, who would honor their Master, and who would do good to their fellowmen. They were consistent in their walk and work, and the light of their example, shining in the darkness, not only attracted attention, but showed how much better was virtue than vice. They won the confidence of both keepers and prisoners within their prison-walls, and secured the good-will of officials of higher rank and greater influence. They conversed with their brother prisoners, giving consolation and counsel to the sick and dying, warning the hardened, and directing the penitent and inquiring. Among the apparent consequences of such fidelity there were one or two religious revivals, and much good seemed to be the result of their pious and painstaking labors.

Their correct deportment raised up friends for them even among those who were incensed against their Abolitionism.

The report gaining currency that Mr. Work's family was suf fering on account of his absence, and consequent inability to minister to their necessities, softened the hearts of his persecutors, and prepared the way for a favorable application to the governor for his release. On the 20th of January, 1845, Governor Edwards issued his proclamation remitting the further execution of the sentence pronounced against him, "on the express condition, however, that said Work returns to the State of Connecticut, his former residence, with his wife and children, and settles himself there"; his imprisonment having continued "three years, six months, and seven days." A little more than a year later, Mr. Burr was released, without the unjust condition of being compelled to leave the State. Mr. Thompson, being better educated, and more unreserved in the expression of his sentiments, as was exhibited in his letter to the governor and in a conversation with the Secretary of State, was treated with less leniency, and compelled to remain longer. He was, however, finally pardoned, after an imprisonment of five years lacking nineteen days, and after being required to confess that he regretted the act for which he was punished, and promising that he would not repeat it. After his pardon was granted, there is this singular entry in his journal: June 14th. For the last time I collected the lambs and had another prayer-meeting. It was a blessed reviving season."

Such were the men, and such their manifest spirit and purpose, whom Missouri felt obliged to incarcerate in a felon's cell for no other crime than that of aiding two men in an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the rigors and perils of a bondage in which they were unjustly and wickedly held. And the American government, and the American church, at least as bodies, had no words of protest to enter against so barbarous a deed!

CHAPTER VII.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.

OPERATIONS AT THE EAST AND IN

THE MIDDLE STATES.

Charles T. Torrey. -Slaveholders' convention in Maryland. - Arrest of Mr. Torrey. Sent to jail. — Released by the judge. - Consecrates himself to the work of freeing the slave. Aids slaves to escape. - Arrest. — Trial. - Conviction. - Imprisonment. Sickness. - Death. William L. Chaplin.

Helps Slaves to escape from Washington. - Arrested in Maryland. — Held in exorbitant bonds. Bonds paid. - Jonathan Walker. - Thomas Garrett.

THE arrests, imprisonments, trials, and death of Charles T. Torrey in the Maryland penitentiary are among the more memorable examples and incidents connected with the working of the Underground Railroad. The wide notoriety of his acts, his position as a young clergyman, the great respectability of his connections, the high standing of those who sought his reprieve or some mitigation of his sentence, with the persistent refusal of the authorities to grant it, challenged scrutiny, demanded investigation, and compelled thoughtful men to ask and show cause why such acts of neighborly kindness should be so severely punished.

Mr. Torrey was born near the spot where the Pilgrims landed, and of an ancestry distinguished for their piety and political standing. His parents dying in his early childhood, he was placed under the care of his grandparents. Quick and impulsive, he did not receive that thorough and careful restraint from these indulgent guardians which one of his mercurial temperament required. When, therefore, he went forth into the world, he had not gained all that caution, that calm and calculating self-control, which one differently constituted and differently trained might have exhibited in the peculiarly trying circumstances in which he was afterward placed. When he was brought into close contact with slavery, and became

acquainted with the sad story of the slave's wrongs and wants, he was not so well prepared to listen to the cool counsels of prudence, as he was prompt to reduce to practice, without much refining and weighing of consequences, that "disinterested benevolence" which was the great idea of his religious creed.

Graduating from Yale College in the year 1830, he was settled in 1837 as pastor of the Richmond Street Congregational Church in Providence. In the mean time he had married the second daughter of Dr. Ide of West Medway, Massachusetts, his theological teacher, and granddaughter of the late Dr. Emmons of Franklin, of the same State, a distinguished theologian of his day. By this marriage he became allied to prominent leaders in a school of theology whose distinguishing feature had ever been an inflexible adherence to the logical conclusions of the doctrines of its creed, in their practical as well as their theoretical results, thus extorting the admission of a veteran antislavery writer that he had "never known a Hopkinsian clergyman who was not an Abolitionist." The great reforms, especially the antislavery, then at their spring-tide, and stirring the public mind deeply, would not permit him to enjoy the quietude of a pastor's life. Accordingly he relinquished his pastorate in the autumn of 1838, and engaged in delivering antislavery lectures.

In 1842, there was a slaveholders' convention at Annapolis, Maryland, at which, as if the laws of that State were not inhuman and unchristian enough, it was proposed, even at that late date, to make them still more oppressive and wicked. Among other propositions, hardly less degrading and cruel, they proposed to the legislature to prevent the emancipation of slaves by will or deed; to prevent free negroes from coming into the State; to sell free persons of color, convicted of crime, into slavery out of the State; to repeal the act allowing manumitted negroes to remain in the State without a certificate; to require free negroes to give security for their good behavior; to forbid free negroes from holding real estate; and also to prohibit them from holding meetings after sundown. Mr. Torrey went to the convention in the capacity of a Washington corre

spondent of several Northern papers. Whether or not the members of the convention were made suspicious by the nefarious purposes of their meeting, it soon transpired that they suspected Mr. Torrey of being an Abolitionist, and a question arose whether he should be allowed to remain, either on the floor or in the galleries. While this was discussed in the convention, a great excitement was pervading Annapolis, and the mob was debating the question whether he should be taken out of town to be tarred and feathered, or hung. The conclusion, however, was to commit him to jail,-a building he pronounced to be "old and ruinous, without bed, or even straw, for a prisoner." He was allowed, however, such necessities, by furnishing them at private expense. He was gratuitously defended by two able lawyers of the State, Alexander and Palmer. Several of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress and others proffered their kind sympathy and good offices. After several days' incarceration, the judge decided that there was no cause for detention, though he put him under five hundred. dollars' bonds to keep the peace, his lawyers kindly becoming his sureties. This false imprisonment, these "bonds," and an expenditure which, as a poor man heavily in debt, he was illy able to bear, were the price he was obliged to pay for being an Abolitionist, nothing else being laid to his charge.

In this jail he became acquainted with thirteen persons who had been manumitted by their owner, who afterward died insolvent. Being seized by the creditors of the estate, these unoffending men and women were twice tried before the courts, where it was proved that their late owner was not insolvent when he manumitted them. But these decisions having been reversed by the chancellor, they were in jail awaiting a new trial, with small probability of a favorable result. Mr. Torrey, very naturally, became deeply interested in their case, and resolved to help them, if he could. In a letter to the "New York Evangelist," written a few days after his release, there occurs this sentence:

re

"I feel with more force than ever the injunction to member them that are in bonds as bound with them'; and, after listening to the history of their career, I sat down and