Page:Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892).djvu/394

386 doubted that he thought just what he said. Soon after his coming to me, he asked me to get for him two smoothly-planed boards, upon which he could illustrate, with a pair of dividers, by a drawing, the plan of fortification which he meant to adopt in the mountains.

These forts were to be so arranged as to connect one with the other, by secret passages, so that if one was carried another could easily be fallen back upon, and be the means of dealing death to the enemy at the very moment when he might think himself victorious. I was less interested in these drawings than my children were, but they showed that the old man had an eye to the means as well as to the end, and was giving his best thought to the work he was about to take in hand.

It was his intention to begin this work in '58 instead of '59. Why he did not will appear from the following circumstances.

While in Kansas, he made the acquaintance of one Colonel Forbes, an Englishman, who had figured somewhat in revolutionary movements in Europe, and, as it turned out, had become an adventurer—a soldier of fortune in this country. This Forbes professed to be an expert in military matters, and easily fastened upon John Brown, and, becoming master of his scheme of liberation, professed great interest in it, and offered his services to him in the preparation of his men for the work before them. After remaining with Brown a short time, he came to me in Rochester, with a letter from him, asking me to receive and assist him. I was not favorably impressed with Colonel Forbes at first, but I "conquered my prejudice," took him to a hotel and paid his board while he remained. Just before leaving, he spoke of his family in Europe as in destitute circumstances, and of his desire to send them some money. I gave him a little—I forget how much—and through Miss Assing, a German