Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/210

198 Boston delay? What a reproach to the fair fame of her merchants! The history of Boston was against them; America has not yet forgotten the conduct of Boston in the matter of the Stamp Act and Acts of Trade. She was deeply guilty of the revolutionary war; she still kept its cradle of liberty, and the bones of Adams and Hancock,—dangerous relics in any soil; they ought to have been "sent back" at the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and Faneuil Hall demolished. Bunker Hill Monument was within sight. Boston was suspected of not liking to kidnap a man. What a reproach it was to her!—8975 coloured persons in Massachusetts, and not a fugitive returned from Boston. September passed by, October, November, December, January, February, March; not a slave sent back in seven months! What a disgrace to the government of Boston, which longed to steal a man; to the representative of Boston, who had voted for the theft; to the Union meeting, which loved the Slave Act; to Mr Webster, who thought Massachusetts would obey "with alacrity,"—his presidential stock looked down; to his kidnappers, who had not yet fleshed their fangs on a fugitive. What a reproach to the churches of commerce, and their patron, Saint Hunker! One minister would drive a fugitive from his door; another send back his own mother: what was their divinity worth, if, in seven months, they could not convert a single parishoner, and celebrate the sacrament of kidnapping!

Yet, after all, not a slave went back from old Boston, though more than four hundred fled out of the city from the stripes of America, and got safe to the Cross of England; not a slave went back from Boston, spite of her representative, her government, her Union meeting, and her clerical advice. She would comfort herself against this sorrow, but her heart was faint in her. Well might she say, "The harvest is passed, the winter is ended, and we are not saved."

Yet the good men still left in Boston, their heart not wholly corrupt with politics and lust of gain, rejoiced that Boston was innocent of the great transgression of her sister-cities, and thought of the proud days of old. But wily men came here: it was alleged they came from the South. They went round to the shops of jobbers, to the mills of manufactures, and looked at large quantities of goods,