Page:Sketchesinhistory00pett.pdf/57

Rh he, “there are not men enough in Virginia to carry me out of this city. If there is to be any excitement of that sort here, I’m bound to have a hand in it, and I shall stay and help fight it out.”

The vague rumors that were afloat were not sufficient to put Jerry and his friends upon their guard. The only persons who knew what was going on were such as sympathized with the slaveholder, for animals of the “genus copperhead,” had already become sufficiently numerous to consume a vast amount of bad whiskey. A marshal was brought from Rochester to make the arrest, for no citizen of Syracuse could be found who dared to “face the music.” Jerry, all unconscious of danger, was busily employed, hammering away at a barrel in a cooper shop, when about twelve o’clock he was seized, and, after a brave fight, was ironed hand and foot, thrown upon a cart that the marshal had pressed into his service, and started for the office of the Commissioners.

The Convention had organized in Market Hall, and commenced business, when a man came in and interrupted the proceedings by saying, in an excited manner, “Mr. President, an officer from Rochester has arrested a fugitive, and is now carrying him off; they are now on the canal bridge.” In a moment the Convention was broken up, men, women, and children rushed into the street, and ran toward the bridge, but before the crowd arrived the marshal had got Jerry into the Commissioners’ office.

The city was in an uproar; no such excitement had ever been witnessed in Syracuse before. Thousands of people from the country and adjacent towns were there to attend the Convention. The fugitives and free colored men surrounded the building, and they were surrounded on all sides by a dense mass of people. Some of the best lawyers in the State were present, and