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 various conjectures as to the way in which this information got out. The identity of the man who sought to betray the secret is now pretty well known. It does not matter who he was. The wonder is that the secret was not betrayed sooner. But once more the Southern dolce far niente came to Brown's aid. Secretary Floyd received this letter while he was pleasuring at a watering-place, glanced it over, filed it away as if it were a paper of some importance, and did nothing more about it. The paper came out only after the blow had been struck.

Brown ran over to Philadelphia on the 10th or 11th of October, and met there Francis Jackson Merriam, a young man of good family in Boston, who at once definitely and enthusiastically joined the desperate expedition. Brown sent Merriam to Baltimore to buy forty thousand percussion caps, and the merchant who sold them was allowed