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 BROWN 341 during the night a coolness and self-control which extorted the admiration of his prisoners. " With one son dead by his side," says Col. Washington, " and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, held his rifle in the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm and to sell their lives as dearly as possible." An offer to release his prisoners provided his men were permitted to cross the bridge in safety having been rejected, the last avenue of escape was closed to him. During the night Col. Robert E. Lee, with a body of United States marines and two pieces of ar- tillery, arrived and took post near the engine house. At 7 o'clock on the morning of the 18th these troops battered in the door of the building, and in an instant overpowered the small garrison. Brown, fighting desperately to the last, was struck down by a sabre stroke, and while prostrate on the ground was twice bayoneted. Although grievously wounded, he preserved his undaunted bearing. When questioned as to his object in seizing the ar- senal and imprisoning citizens, he answered with perfect frankness, but refused to com- promise persons still at liberty. Gov. Wise and Senator Mason of Virginia, and Mr. 0. L. Val- landigham, a member of congress from Ohio, cross-examined him closely, but failed to elicit any other than a simple statement of his mo- tives and personal acts. He declined to an- swer no reasonable question, asserting that he had only done his duty in attempting to libe- rate the slaves of Virginia, and that he had nothing to regret save the failure of the enter- prise. He however expressed great solicitude for his son Watson, who was captured in a dying condition, and who died on Wednesday, the 19th. On the same day Brown and his three surviving comrades were conveyed to the jail in Oharlestown, Va. They were in- dicted a few days later for conspiring with negroes to produce insurrection, for treason against the commonwealth of Virginia, and for murder. On Oct. 27 Brown was brought to trial, his request for a brief delay on the ground that he was mentally and physically unable to proceed with his trial, and that he wished to confer with counsel of his own choice instead of those assigned to him by the court, having been denied. He was laid upon a cot within the bar, being too feeble to stand or even to sit, and, in the presence of a court and jury violently prejudiced against him, conducted himself with singular calmness. He repelled with indignation the plea of insanity attempted to be urged in his behalf, and even offered, in order to save time and trouble, to identify papers in his own handwriting which afforded strong evidence against him. Counsel mean- while arrived from the north to defend him, and the trial went on. On the 31st he was found guilty on all the counts in the indict ment, and on the succeeding day he was sen- tenced to be hanged on Dec. 2. In the speech which he addressed to the court on this oc- casion he disavowed any intention of commit- ting murder or treason or the wilful destruc- tion of property. His prime object, he said, was to liberate the slaves, not to excite them to insurrection, and he therefore felt no con- sciousness of guilt. He laid considerable stress on his kind treatment of his prisoners in the arsenal, and also expressed himself satisfied with the treatment he had himself received on the trial. During his imprisonment he received visits from his wife and a number of northern friends, and held arguments on the slavery question with southern clergymen who at- tempted to offer him the consolations of reli- gion. On the day appointed for his execution he left the jail, an eye-witness said, " with a radiant countenance and the step of a con- queror," pausing for a moment by the door to kiss a negro child held up to him by its mother. On the scaffold he was calm, gentle, and re- signed, and warmly thanked all who had been kind to him during his imprisonment. Noticing that none but troops were present at the place of execution, he remarked that citizens should not have been denied the privilege of coming to see him die. He met his death with perfect composure, and was apparently the least con- cerned of all present over the tragic event of the day. His body was delivered to his widow at Harper's Ferry, by whom it was conveyed to the farm in North Elba to be interred. John Brown died as he had lived, a resolute, unyield- ing zealot. His piety was as sincere as it was severe. On one occasion in Kansas he com- pelled a party of profane Missourians captured by him to kneel and pray under penalty of being shot; and during the few weeks pre- ceding the capture of the arsenal at Harper's Ferry he caused his followers to engage daily in prayer and the reading of the Scriptures. On every subject but slavery he was shrewd and eminently practical. As an exponent of the austere virtues of the men who founded the New England colonies, he seemed an offshoot from an earlier age; and it would be difficult to find his counterpart in that regard among men prominent in American history during the past half century. BROWN, John Newton, D. D., an American clergyman and author, born in New London, Conn., June 29, 1803, died in Gennantown, Penn., May 15, 1868. He studied at the literary and theological institution, now Madison uni- versity, Hamilton, N. Y., and entered upon his duties as a preacher in Buffalo, N. Y., where he remained one year. He then removed to Providence, R. I., to assist the Rev. Dr. Gano, pastor of the first Baptist church in that city, and afterward preached at Maiden, Mass., and in Exeter, .N. H. At Exeter he edited the " Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge " (1 vol. small 4to, Brattleboro, 1835), which was republished in England. In 1838 he became professor of exegetical theology and ecclesias- tical history in the New Hampton theological