Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/68

 • A Plea for Captain John Brozvn. 57 ber, including the authorities, exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying, "■ It is perfectly well under- stood that I will not be taken/' Much of the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from sickness, which was the consequence of exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites.

But though it might be known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes commonly did not care to go in after him. He could even come out into a town where there were more Border Ruffians than Free State men, and transact some business, without delaying long, and yet not be molested; for, said he, '^ No little handful of men were willing to undertake it, and a large body could not be got together in season.^' As for his recent failure, we do not know the facts'" about it. It was evidently far from being a wild and desperate attempt. His enemy, Mr. Yallandigham, is compelled to say, that " it was among the best planned and executed conspiracies that ever failed.'^ Not to mention his other successes, was it a failure, or did it show a want of good management, to deliver from bondage a dozen human beings, and walk off with them by broad daylight, for weeks if not months, at a / leisurely pace, through one State after another, for half ' the length of the North, conspicuous to all parties, with a price set upon his head, going into a court-room on his way and telling what he had done, thus convincing Missouri that it was not profitable to try to hold slaves in his neighbourhood ? — and this, not because the govern- ment menials were lenient, but because they were afraid of him.

Yet he did not attribute his success, foolishly, to "his