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324 Police Commissioners and a strong force of policemen, at the appointed honr to meet Mr. Lincoln. The Mayor had a carriage in waiting, in which, as he said, he was to have the honor of escorting Mr. Lincoln through the city to the Washington station and of sharing in any danger which he might encounter. "It is hardly necessary to say I apprehended none," Judge Brown continues in his narrative. "When the train came it appeared, to my great astonishment, that Mrs. Lincoln and her three sons had arrived safely, and without hindrance or molestation of any kind, but that Mr. Lincoln could not be found. It was then announced that he had passed through the city incognito in the night train by the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and had reached Washington in safety at the usual hour in the morning. For this signal deliverance from an imaginary peril those who devised the ingenious plan of escape were, of course, devoutly thankful, and they accordingly took to themselves no little amount of credit for its success." Of this episode Colonel Lamon, the friend and biographer of Lincoln, said: "Mr. Lincoln soon learned to regret his midnight ride. His friends reproached him, his enemies taunted him. He was convinced that he made a grave mistake in yielding to the solicitations of a professional spy and of friends too easily alarmed."