Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/92

 frankly those of the guerilla. He liberated many slaves, and, as the phrase went in Kansas, incidentally converted many Pro-slavery horses and cattle to Free State principles. At this time a Pro-slavery federal governor, Geary, was vainly trying to reduce the constantly increasing Free State population to submission. Finally, the Missourians and other Southerners raised a force of twenty-seven hundred men for a last attack on the Anti-slavery stronghold, Lawrence. They were resisted by the Free State men in force. Naturally, Brown was there. He assembled the people in the street on September 16, 1856, and made them a speech, which was reported in the papers. It is so good that it could hardly have been an invention: it deserves to rank as "classic amongst fighting exhortations of the sort:—

"Gtentlemen,—It is said there are twenty-five hundred Missourians down at