Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/161

Rh get illegal interest? How many banks are content with six per cent, when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we? betray the wanderer, and expose the outcast? It has been said that the fugitive slave law cannot be executed in Boston. Let us not be deceived. Who would have thought a year ago, that the Senator of Boston would make such a speech as that of last March, that so many of the leading citizens of Boston would write such a letter of approval, that such a bill could pass the Congress, and a man be found in this city (Mr Samuel A. Eliot) to vote for it and get no rebuke from the people! Yet a single man should not endure the shame alone, which belongs in general to the leading men of the city. The member for Boston faithfully represented the public opinion of his most eminent constituents, lay and clerical. Here is an account of what took place in New York since the delivery of the sermon.

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"The following case, which occurred yesterday, is one of peculiar interest from the fact of its being the first case under the new Fugitive Slave Law. It will be noticed that there is very little of the 'law's delay' here; the proceedings were as summary as an Arkansas court audience could desire.

"—Before Commissioner Gardiner.—Examination as to James Hamlet, charged to be a fugitive slave, the property of Mary Brown, of Baltimore.—No person was present as counsel for accused, and only one coloured man. He is a light mulatto. The marshal said Mr Wood had been there. The commissioner said they would go on, and if counsel came in, he would read proceedings.

"Thomas J. Clare (a man with dark eyes and hair), sworn.—Am thirty years of age; clerk for Merchant's Shot Manufacturing Company in Baltimore; know James Hamlet; he is slave of Mary Brown, a mother-in-law of mine, residing in Baltimore; have known Hamlet about twenty years; he left my mother-in-law about two years ago this season, by absenting himself from the premises, the dwelling where he resided in Baltimore; she is entitled to his services; he is a slave for life; she never parted with him voluntarily; she came into possession of him by will from John G. Brown, her deceased husband; the written paper shown is an extract from his will; she held him under that from the time she inherited him till he escaped, as I have testified; this is the man (pointing to Hamlet, a light mulatto man, about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, looking exceedingly pensive).

"Gustavus Brown, sworn.—Am twenty-five years of age; reside in New York; clerk with A. M. Fenday, 25 Front-street; resided before coming hero in Baltimore; I know James Hamlet; I have known him since a boy; he is a slave to my mother; he is a slave for life; my mother inherited him under the will of my father; he left her service by running away, I suppose; absenting himself from the house in the city of Baltimore, about two years since; I have seen him several times, within the last six months, in the city; first time I saw him was in April last; my mother is still entitled to possession of him; she never has parted with him; the man sitting here (Hamlet) is the man.

"Mr Asa Child, Counsellor at Law, here came into the room, and took his seat; he said he had been sent to this morning, through another, by a gentleman with whom Hamlet had lived in this city (Mr S. N. Wood), but he had