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very quiet." I would not have gone to the Convention on any consideration; I was in the employ of the Church, and it sent me to do no such work, however praiseworthy in itself. I scrupulously kept away from all exciting meetings during my stay in the Territory; I challenge proof to the contrary.

My brother, who search of help; he The trunks were

The day arrived when we were not to leave, but to be taken out of the cabin. The farm wagon was driven to the door; our trunks were put in, and my wife and myself taken and laid on blankets in the bottom of the wagon. We left cabin and claim, furniture, &c., just as they were, and have never looked after them since. "All that a man hath will he give for his life." The wagon was driven about a mile, when we came to a soft piece of road, and the horses stopped, unable to draw the wagon. was driving, left us and went in returned with two or three men. taken out of the wagon, my wife and myself were lifted out and laid on the top of the trunks. The wagon was then driven about one hundred yards on to the more compact earth, and ourselves and the trunks put back again into the wagon. In this way we were driven to Atchison, to take a boat up to St. Joseph. When we reached Atchison, I was carried to the hotel, the wagon could not be driven to the door. When we reached the hotel, I observed a number of the chivalry. The editors of the "Squatter Sovereign," J. H. Stringfellow, Bob Kelly, and Cundiff, looked daggers at me. I did not know but that the fate of the Rev. Pardee Butler awaited me. This

was the place, and these were some of the gentlemen to which and to whom the honor belongs of sending down the Missouri, tied to a log, the above-named gentleman, who, I believe, is a Kentuckian by birth.

At first we were told that we could receive no room at the hotel. I did not know what to think of this at first, but I afterwards learned that there was not room. But I found there Mr. Peter T. Abell and his lady, from Weston. They were quite civil to us. We were

allowed to sit in their room until one should be vacated in the house. P. T. A. was a decided Pro-Slavery man; he was a leader among the "Self-Defensives." He was the partner of the Law firm, "Abell & Stringfellow," of Weston. Mr. Abell had some cause if not reason to justify his decided opposition to Free State settlers. A negro man had run away from him, and this negro would occasionally write from Canada, very insulting letters to him.

While at Atchison we received no abuse; all the attention, however, which I had shown me here, where I was well known, I had to pay well for. For three days and nights I remained at A., insensible, as I am informed, the greater portion of the time. The steamer Edinburgh, however, came up in the middle of the third night after our arrival, when I was supported on the one side by a wife, herself sick, and the keeper of the hotel on the other, down to the steamer. After the steamer had left the levee on her way to St. Joseph, about forty miles distant, while I was sitting in the cabin, as I am informed, I fell down on the floor in a congestive chill which is considered in that country

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almost invariably fatal. I was carried to the stateroom, and here, I learned afterwards, two gentlemen acquainted with the nature of the disease, did all which reason and experience suggested to them. I recovered, in some measure, my senses before we reached St. Joseph. When we reached the levee there, the Rev. Mr. Irish came on board. He approached me, ana said, “ Although I think you have done me a great wrong, I cannot withhold my sympathies from you in this condition." I did not understand him. I asked him to get me a carriage, that I might be taken out to my old friend, Mrs. Cargill's, three miles in the country. This I was told would be madness in my condition; the carriage was procured, and the Rev. Mr. I. had me taken to his own house, where I remained about ten days in a very critical state, attended by the best medical aid in the town, and by the most assiduous nursing care of Mr. I. and his family. It was the general opinion that I could not live. Mr. J. Cargill and his family visited me daily. When it was quite safe for me to be taken to the country, I was carried out to Mrs. C.'s, where two children could not have received as much fond attention as my wife and myself did for the period of one month. After I had left this region of country, I wrote letters of thanks for kindness received at the hands of Mr. I. and my dear friend, Mrs. C. It gives me pleasure now to do so, in a more public manner. On the 29th of October, 1855, we took the Polar Star, at St. Joseph, for St. Louis. It was on this trip down that Mr. J. W. Whitfield furnished me with the matter contained in a previous chapter. He was then on his way to Washington.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE PAST AND THE PRESENT CONDITION OF KANSAS.

I HAVE thought that perhaps my view of the past and the present state of things in the Territory, would not be unacceptable, or altogether without utility.

I am very much amazed at the incredulity which seems to possess the minds of many very excellent men with reference to the outrages in Kansas.

They read of these deeds of demons in the newspapers, and the paper is thrown aside, with a sneer of utter scorn at the temerity of an editor who is so lost to a sense of truth as to insert such articles in his journal. And these persons are confirmed in their sentiments by two or three of the sober and conservative journals of New York, and the religious press very generally. The nearest approach to pandemonium that the editors of these journals have ever made in their lives, has been when they took a holiday at Saratoga or at Newport; therefore, they are not, neither can they be, with their present limited ideas of human nature, judges of affairs on the Border. Their opinion, I say, is worse than useless; they write of matters concerning which they show perfect ignorance. It would be infinitely better for humanity that they

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should keep altogether silent; and say, "as we have no correspondents in that region of country, we have no reports which we regard as reliable." But instead of doing this, they sneer at the statements made in papers much better furnished with facts than they are themselves. While they caution their sober and grave readers to give no credence to the reports furnished to the journals which have the largest circulation among the people, they unconsciously become the deceivers of good men, and the aiders and abettors of criminals of the deepest dye. This is an awful Responsibility for the Editors of these Journals to assume. I know readers of these papers in the City of New York, who are told by them every day that the reports from Kansas are fabrications, who if they could but be transported to Kansas for a day, they would fall down and weep over the outrages committed in the land of a Washington!

I have no interest in what I write, save that justice may not be driven from her throne; I trust that my experience will have some influence in counteracting the misstatements of the troubles on the Border, by some of the solid journals of New York. I have nothing to gain, but everything to lose, in making the statements which are embraced in this volume. I do not, I think, array myself in opposition to the sentiment of my brethren in the ministry in this particular. I know that many of them agree with me; in truth, none with whom I have conversed, have intimated a doubt to me that my story was not strictly correct; they lamented such a state of things, but the